I'm afraid to say how big; it really seemed to me the size of
your hand, and he piled quite a little mound of green peas on it, with a
great mass of broken fragments and gravy, and put it all into his mouth
at once, though that mouth was already pretty well-filled with the
larger half of an enormous potato. I thought he would never get it in,
but something you said caused him to laugh at the time, and before the
laugh was over the bite had disappeared. Before it was properly
swallowed he was helping himself to another slice from the leg of
mutton! I declare to you, Kate, that many a time I have dined
altogether on less than that one bite!"

Poor Miss Seaward had stated a simple truth in regard to herself, but
that truth was founded on want of food, not on want of appetite or
capacity for more.

At first it had been arranged that an account-book should be kept, and
that the captain should pay for one-third of the food that was consumed
in the house, but he had consumed so much, and the sisters so
ridiculously little, that he refused to fall in with such an arrangement
and insisted on paying for all the food consumed, with the exception of
the cup of coffee, cream, and sugar, with which he regaled himself every
day after dinner. Of course they had had a battle over this matter
also, but the captain had carried the day, as he usually did, for he had
marvellous powers of suasion. He had indeed so argued, and talked, and
bamboozled the meek sisters--sometimes seriously, oftener jocularly,--
that they had almost been brought to the belief that somehow or other
their lodger was only doing what was just! After all, they were not so
far wrong, for all that they ate of the captain's provisions amounted to
a mere drop in the bucket, while the intellectual food with which they
plied their lodger in return, and the wealth of sympathy with which they
surrounded him, was far beyond the power of gold to purchase.

"No," said Captain Bream, sipping his coffee and shaking his head, when
Jessie again pressed on him the propriety of sitting in the parlour of
an evening, "I can't do it. The fact is that I'm studying--though you
may think I'm rather an oldish student--and I can't study except when
I'm alone."

"What are you studying?" asked Kate, and then, observing that the
captain looked slightly confused, and feeling that she ought not to have
put the question, she quickly changed the subject by adding--"for
whatever it is, you