them the way along a passage. Then a
door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with
the words--

"A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir."

Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too,
burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint
old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn, and all complete. On
the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against
the mantelpiece, was a tall man--red-haired, with streaks of grey in
that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes,
which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the
door, afraid to advance.

"Oscar, where are your manners?" asked the gentleman, "to treat a lady
in this way, when she's thrust upon you?"

Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.

"I beg your pardon," lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.

"No, no; a lady is very like a king--she never does wrong or needs
pardon; 'tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor."

Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife
and toasting-fork, and came towards her.

"Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?" said he, setting her
a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.

"With a lady in the room, you'll never do that," said the gentleman,
spying comically at him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the
boy began to brew the tea.

"Oh no, thank you; I couldn't manage the urn," said Inna.

"I thought not," growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of
eleven, with grey-blue eyes. "And now, here I am without a cup for you."

Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided
round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to
fetch a cup and saucer.

"Won't you say you will like to have me here, Uncle--Uncle Jonathan?"
she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall
red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her
cheeks.

"My dear little lady, I think you're just the one element wanting in our
male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling
down into the savages we're fast becoming," replied the gentleman,
glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.

"Well, isn't that welcome enough?" he asked, still with that comical
smile, as I