s illness. I do hope you
and Gussie will like each other, Auntie. I can tell you, he's bent on
pleasing you."

"He seemed agreeable," Auntie said. "Has he got nerves?" she asked.

"Nerves!" repeated Grace, opening her eyes. "Dear, no! Only like other
people's. Why?"

"I only asked the question," Auntie said. "When he isn't talking or
eating, his mouth still works; and when he smiles he shows his gums. I
thought it was nerves."

"Oh, that's just a habit he's got. He only does it when strangers are
present."

"I hope Henry won't catch it," Auntie said. "Children are imitative."

"No fear about Henry. Henry takes after me--colour and all," Mrs
Mellish said. She was a brown-haired woman, with cheeks like a damask
rose, and Henry was the only child of the house, and was away at a
boarding-school.

During the evening a neighbour and his wife came in. He and she and the
two ladies played bridge, while Gussie looked on or fidgeted aimlessly
about the room, taking up and putting down again books and papers,
looking into empty ornamental jars, continually comparing his own watch
with the drawing-room clock.

"To tell you the truth, he always goes out in the evening," Grace
informed Auntie, while seeing her to her bedroom. "He has his club, you
know. They play rather high. I don't think he cares for our careful
little game. If you don't mind, I think I shall tell him to go there
to-morrow night. He does worry me so when he prowls about the
drawing-room."

"Let him go, by all means. I don't mind at all," Auntie acquiesced.

"I knew she'd win. They always do, when they've money, and don't want
to," Mellish said to his wife, talking over the evening's game. "Played
threepence a hundred, didn't she?"

"Isn't it mean of her!" Grace said. "With a purse full of
sovereigns--for I saw them when she gave it to me to pay the cab--and
thirty more, she told me, in her jewel-case. By the way, the servants
asked for their wages again to-day, Gussie."

"Oh, I daresay! Ask your aunt to pay them."

"I should like to see myself stooping to ask such a thing of Auntie!"

"You don't mind stooping to ask money of me every time you open your
mouth."

"I wonder you can dare to say it! I haven't had a penny from you, for a
week. I hadn't even the half-crown to buy the child the new paint-box
he wrote for."

"Henry? Does he want a paint-box? He shall have it, poor little chap. I
will see about it tomorrow."

*