ll break down. A vital condition is that I do not have a soul in the
house (beyond the lodgers) who is not one of my own relations. When we
have put Joey into buttons, he will do very well to attend to the door.'

'But s'pose,' said Joey, after a glassy look at his future appearance in
the position alluded to, 'that any of your gentle-people come to see ye,
and when I opens the door and lets 'em in a swinging big lodger stalks
downstairs. What will 'em think? Up will go their eye-glasses at one
another till they glares each other into holes. My gracious!'

'The one who calls will only think that another visitor is leaving, Joey.
But I shall have no visitors, or very few. I shall let it be well known
among my late friends that my mother is an invalid, and that on this
account we receive none but the most intimate friends. These intimate
friends not existing, we receive nobody at all.'

'Except Sol and Dan, if they get a job in London? They'll have to call
upon us at the back door, won't they, Berta?' said Joey.

'They must go down the area steps. But they will not mind that; they
like the idea.'

'And father, too, must he go down the steps?'

'He may come whichever way he likes. He will be glad enough to have us
near at any price. I know that he is not at all happy at leaving you
down here, and he away in London. You remember that he has only taken
the situation at Mr. Doncastle's on the supposition that you all come to
town as soon as he can see an opening for getting you there; and as
nothing of the sort has offered itself to him, this will be the very
thing. Of course, if I succeed wonderfully well in my schemes for story-
tellings, readings of my ballads and poems, lectures on the art of
versification, and what not, we need have no lodgers; and then we shall
all be living a happy family--all taking our share in keeping the
establishment going.'

'Except poor me!' sighed the mother.

'My dear mother, you will be necessary as a steadying power--a flywheel,
in short, to the concern. I wish that father could live there, too.'

'He'll never give up his present way of life--it has grown to be a part
of his nature. Poor man, he never feels at home except in somebody
else's house, and is nervous and quite a stranger in his own. Sich is
the fatal effects of service!'

'O mother, don't!' said Ethelberta tenderly, but with her teeth on edge;
and Picotee curled up her toes, fearing that her mother was g