e
a housekeeper. It will appal Arundel, and make him feel out of his
element."

"If he is to feel that, what does he come for?" Joyce said, angrily. "We
want no upstarts here."

"Upstarts! that is fine talking. Arundel comes of one of the oldest
families in England. Not older than ours; though, unhappily, we live as
if we had sprung from the gutter, and do not get any proper respect."

"Respect!" exclaimed Joyce, indignantly. "Respect! As if father were not
respected as a justice! and as if _you_----" Joyce stopped; she felt too
indignant to go on.

"My dear little sister," Melville said, with a grand air of pity--"my
dear little sister, you are only ignorant. If you knew a little more of
the habits and customs of the higher classes, you would not talk so
foolishly."

"I do not wish to know more about them if you have got _your_ habits
from associating with them."

Melville smiled, and did not betray the least irritation.

"My dear," he said, "facts are stubborn things. Does it never strike
you, that though my father dines at the houses of the gentry in the
county, sits on the bench, and rides to cover, you and my mother are not
invited to accompany him. The truth is my good mother dislikes the
usages of _genteel_ life."

Melville used that objectionable word with emphasis. Genteel was in
those days used as some of us now use words which are scarcely more
significant, though generally accepted--"Good form," "A 1," and so
forth.

"It is," Melville continued, grandly, "the result of early associations;
and so we eat heavy one o'clock meals and nine o'clock suppers, instead
of dining at three or four o'clock; and my mother, instead of receiving
company in the house, works in it like a servant. It is a vast pity, my
dear. It keeps the family down, and destroys your chances in life. So I
advise you to try to alter things. Now Arundel is coming, I want to dine
at a less outlandish hour, and I----"

Whatever Mr. Melville Falconer wanted Joyce did not stay to hear. She
left the large hall by one door as her mother entered by the other,
bearing in her hand a tray of delicately prepared breakfast for her
son, who was wholly unworthy of her attentions, and would have been
better without them.

"Thank you, mother," Melville said. "I hope the toast is not dried up.
There is so much skill even in the poaching of an egg."

"There are two ways of doing everything," was Mrs. Falconer's rejoinder.
"Now I must be quick, f