t
Johnnie could always earn money. It's that engineering! And now
Matthew's second curate at St. Paul's and getting fifty pounds a year,
and Henry'll have a curacy next month at Bermondsey--it's been promised,
and all thanks to Johnnie!" She wept.

Johnnie, in the corner, who had so far done nought but knock at the
door, maintained stiffly his policy of non-interference.

Priam Farll, angry, resentful, and quite untouched by the recital,
shrugged his shoulders. He was animated by the sole desire to fly from
the widow and progeny of his late valet. But he could not fly. The
Herculean John was too close to the door. So he shrugged his shoulders a
second time.

"Yes, sir," said Matthew, "you may shrug your shoulders, but you can't
shrug us out of existence. Here we are, and you can't get over us. You
are our father, and I presume that a kind of respect is due to you. Yet
how can you hope for our respect? Have you earned it? Did you earn it
when you ill-treated our poor mother? Did you earn it when you left her,
with the most inhuman cruelty, to fend for herself in the world? Did you
earn it when you abandoned your children born and unborn? You are a
bigamist, sir; a deceiver of women! Heaven knows--"

"Would you mind just toasting this bread?" Alice interrupted his
impassioned discourse by putting the loaded toasting-fork into his
hands, "while I make the tea?"

It was a novel way of stopping a mustang in full career, but it
succeeded.

While somewhat perfunctorily holding the fork to the fire, Matthew
glared about him, to signify his righteous horror, and other sentiments.

"Please don't burn it," said Alice gently. "Suppose you were to sit down
on this foot-stool." And then she poured boiling water on the tea, put
the lid on the pot, and looked at the clock to note the exact second at
which the process of infusion had begun.

"Of course," burst out Henry, the twin of Matthew, "I need not say,
madam, that you have all our sympathies. You are in a----"

"Do you mean me?" Alice asked.

In an undertone Priam could be heard obstinately repeating, "Never set
eyes upon her before! Never set eyes on the woman before!"

"I do, madam," said Henry, not to be cowed nor deflected from his
course. "I speak for all of us. You have our sympathies. You could not
know the character of the man you married, or rather with whom you went
through the ceremony of marriage. However, we have heard, by inquiry,
that you made his acqu