want some more."

"Now, my dear Eddy, I think you have had quite as much as is good for
you," said Lady Danby, shaking her fair curls at her son.

"No, I haven't, ma. Pa, may I have some pine-apple!"

"Yes, yes, yes, and make yourself ill. Maria, my dear, I wish you
wouldn't have that boy into dessert; one can hardly hear one's-self
speak."

"Sweet boy!" muttered Dr Grayson of the Manor House, Coleby, as he
glanced at Sir James Danby's hopeful fat-faced son, his mother's idol,
before which she worshipped every day.

The doctor glanced across the table at his quiet lady-like daughter, and
there was such a curious twinkle in his eye that she turned aside so as
to keep her countenance, and began talking to Lady Danby about parish
work, the poor, and an entertainment to be given at the workhouse.

Dr Grayson and his daughter were dining at Cedars House that evening,
greatly to the doctor's annoyance, for he preferred home.

"But it would be uncivil not to go," said Miss Grayson, who had kept her
father's house almost from a child. So they went.

"Well, doctor," said Sir James, who was a comfortable specimen of the
easy-going country baronet and magistrate, "you keep to your opinion,
and I'll keep to mine."

"I will," said the doctor; "and in two years' time I shall publish my
book with the result of my long studies of the question. I say, sir,
that a boy's a boy."

"Oh yes, we all agree to that, doctor," said Lady Danby sweetly.
"Edgar, my dear, I'm sure you've had enough."

"Pa, mayn't I have half a glass of Madeira!"

"Now, my dear boy, you have had some."

"But that was such a teeny weeny drop, ma. That glass is so thick."

"For goodness' sake, Maria, give him some wine, and keep him quiet,"
cried Sir James. "Don't you hear that Dr Grayson and I are discussing
a point in philosophy!"

"Then you mustn't ask for any more, Eddy dear," said mamma, and she
removed the decanter stopper, and began to pour out a very thin thread
of wine, when the young monkey gave the bottom of the decanter a tilt,
and the glass was nearly filled.

"Eddy, for shame!" said mamma. "What will Miss Grayson think?"

"I don't care," said the boy, seizing the glass, drinking some of the
rich wine, and then turning to the thick slice of pine-apple his mother
had cut.

The doctor gave his daughter another droll look, but she preserved her
calm.

"To continue," said the doctor: "I say a boy's a boy, and I don't care
whose