u will say anything, Fred, to gain your point."

"Well, tell me whether it is slang or poetry to call an ox a
leg-plaiter."

"Of course you can call it poetry if you like."

"Aha, Miss Rosy, you don't know Homer from slang. I shall invent a new
game; I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips, and give them to
you to separate."

"Dear me, how amusing it is to hear young people talk!" said Mrs.
Vincy, with cheerful admiration.

"Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, Pritchard?" said Fred, to
the servant who brought in coffee and buttered toast; while he walked
round the table surveying the ham, potted beef, and other cold
remnants, with an air of silent rejection, and polite forbearance from
signs of disgust.

"Should you like eggs, sir?"

"Eggs, no! Bring me a grilled bone."

"Really, Fred," said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, "if
you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down
earlier. You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting; I cannot
understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings."

"That is your want of understanding, Rosy. I can get up to go hunting
because I like it."

"What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one
else and ordered grilled bone?"

"I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady," said Fred,
eating his toast with the utmost composure.

"I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable, any
more than sisters."

"I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so.
Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions."

"I think it describes the smell of grilled bone."

"Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose associated
with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs. Lemon's
school. Look at my mother you don't see her objecting to everything
except what she does herself. She is my notion of a pleasant woman."

"Bless you both, my dears, and don't quarrel," said Mrs. Vincy, with
motherly cordiality. "Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor.
How is your uncle pleased with him?"

"Pretty well, I think. He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions and then
screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching
his toes. That's his way. Ah, here comes my grilled bone."

"But how came you to stay out so late, my dear? You only said you were
going to your uncle's."

"Oh, I dined at Plym