es had just been removed,
and the turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all
along been of the languidest, but at this moment it happened to
have stagnated altogether. Jelf was carving the turkey. Mrs. Jelf
looked as if she was trying to think of something to say. Everybody
else was silent. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would
relate my adventure.

"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way to-day
with a friend of yours."

"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into
the breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"

"With one who bade me tell you that he should, if possible, pay
you a visit before Christmas."

"I cannot think who that could be," said my friend, smiling.

"It must be Major Thorp," suggested Mrs. Jelf.

I shook my head.

"It was not Major Thorp," I replied. "It was a near relation of
your own, Mrs. Jelf."

"Then I am more puzzled than ever," replied my hostess. "Pray tell
me who it was."

"It was no less a person than your cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse."

Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at
me in a strange, startled way, and said never a word.

"And he desired me to tell you, my dear madam, that you need not
take the trouble to burn the hall down in his honor this time; but
only to have the chimney of the blue room swept before his arrival."

Before I had reached the end of my sentence, I became aware of
something ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said
something which I had better have left unsaid, and that for some
unexplained reason my words had evoked a general consternation. I
sat confounded, not daring to utter another syllable, and for at
least two whole minutes there was dead silence round the table.
Then Captain Prendergast came to the rescue.

"You have been abroad for some months, have you not, Mr. Langford?"
he said, with the desperation of one who flings himself into the
breach. "I heard you had been to Russia. Surely you have something
to tell us of the state and temper of the country after the war?"

I was heartily grateful to the gallant Skirmisher for this diversion
in my favor. I answered him, I fear, somewhat lamely; but he kept
the conversation up, and presently one or two others joined in,
and so the difficulty, whatever it might have been, was bridged
over. Bridged over, but not repaired. A something, an awkwardness,
a visible constraint, remained. The guests hitherto