athers, growing, as it were,
bloodless and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed.

"Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d' ye do?
Who could have expected you? My dear, my dear," he cried, in a broken
voice, and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be
wanting dinner, or supper, or something." But, in the mean while,
Randal's sister Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her
brother's neck, and he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's
strongest human affection was for this sister.

"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair;
"why do yourself such injustice,--why not pay more attention to your
appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?"

"I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and
catch us en dish-a-bill."

"Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "Dishabille! you ought never
to be so caught!"

"No one else does so catch us,--nobody else ever comes. Heigho!" and the
young lady sighed very heartily. "Patience, patience; my day is coming,
and then yours, my sister," replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he
gazed upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a flower,
and what now looked so like a weed.

Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement--having rushed
through the parlour, leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning
brass of the never-mended Brummagem work-table--tore across the hall,
whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left,
and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you
do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hasty and
uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry too, and nothing in the house
but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say, Jenny! Juliet, have you seen
Jenny? Where's Jenny? Out with the odd man, I'll be bound."

"I am not hungry, Mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea."
Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the
tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but
she was greatly in awe of him.

Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come
down," said Mr. Leslie, with some anxiety.

"Oh, Sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me." The pigs stared
up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. "Mother," said the young man,
detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny, "Mother,
you should not