as
I talk very fast, perhaps I don't waste so much time after all; so I
think you'll have to put up with your old uncle's ways, and try and
reform some one else nearer home.'

'If you mean my father'----began Sarah.

But the tone in which she said 'my father' made her uncle interrupt her
sharply. 'No, I don't. I mean nearer home than that; I mean your own
tongue, young woman. You let it run on too fast and too freely. I'm sure
I don't know what kind of a school that is that you're at; but they don't
teach you respect for your elders; and I'm beginning to wonder if you've
paid the twopence extra for manners. If you have, you haven't got your
two-pen'orth, that's certain.'

'Oh yes, I have; only you don't understand them up in the north,' replied
Sarah airily, not in the least abashed or offended, apparently, by her
uncle's candid criticism.

'No, we don't that,' he replied emphatically. But, all the same, he most
evidently cared more for Sarah than he did for her mother or for her
languid brother, to whom he always talked with a kind of good-natured
contempt.

'The fact is, Uncle Howroyd, you're worried, and your way of showing it
is by scolding me, which is not fair, as _I_ am not the person you are
angry with, but some one whom you have come to see to-night, unless I'm
very much mistaken,' observed Sarah, nodding her head knowingly at her
uncle.

'You little witch! how dare you go guessing at your uncle's private
affairs like that?' cried Mr William Howroyd, laughing at his niece.

'Oh, dear Bill, I 'ope there's nothin' wrong between you an' Mark?
Per'aps you'd better not say anythin' to 'im to-night; 'e's a little put
out, just for the minute,' said Mrs Clay.

'For the minute? I'd like to see him at a minute when he isn't put out!
And if you're going to say anything to annoy him I wish you would say it
to-night, for I'd like to myself, only'----

'She daren't!' put in George from the depths of an arm-chair.

Mr William Howroyd turned from his handsome niece, whose hair he was
gently smoothing, to her equally handsome brother, who was lying back in
the softest chair he could find (and they were all comfortable, 'all of
the best,' as Mark Clay said of them, as of everything else he
possessed). 'No; and as for you, I don't suppose you'd trouble to say
anything to your father if it was to save you all from the workhouse,' he
said scornfully.

George Clay was nearly hidden from view by the cushions he had car