reclining on a sofa.  Reclining on sofas, I discovered, was a family trait, though they were all in a state of the most robust health, with the exception of Mr. Somers.  I walked up and down the rooms.  “They were fine once,” said Ben, who appeared from a dark corner, “but faded now.  Mother never changes anything if she can help it.  She is a terrible aristocrat,” he continued, in a low voice, “fixed in the ideas imbedded in the Belem institutions, which only move backward.  We laugh, though, at everybody’s claims but our own.  You despised me for mentioning the Hiticutts’ income; it was the atmosphere.”

“It amuses me to be here.”

“Of course; but stir up Adelaide, she is genuine; has fine sense, and half despises her life; but she knows no other, and is proud.”

“Let’s go and find tea,” she said, yawning, dropping her book.  “Why don’t that lazy Murph light the lamp?  I wish pa was down to regulate affairs.”  No one was at the tea-table but Mrs. Somers.

“Ben is very polite, don’t you think so?” she said with her peculiar laugh, which made my flesh creep, as he pulled up a chair for me.  Her voice made me dizzy, but I smiled.  Ben was not the same in Belem, I saw at once, and no longer wondered at its influence, or at the vacillating nature of his plans and pursuits.  Mrs. Somers gave me some tea from a spider-shaped silver tea-pot, which was related to a spider-shaped cream-jug and a spider-shaped sugar-dish.  The polished surface of the mahogany table reflected a pair of tall silver candlesticks, and the plates, being of warped blue and white Chinese ware, joggled and clattered when we touched them.  The tea was delicious; I said so, but Mrs. Somers deigned no answer.  We were regaled with spread bread and butter and baked apples.  Adelaide ate six.

“We do not have your Surrey suppers,” Ben remarked.

“How should you know?” his mother asked.  Ben’s eyes looked violent and he bit his lips.  Adelaide commenced speaking before her mother had finished her question, as if she only needed the spur of her voice to be lively and agreeable, per contra.

“Hepburn must ask us to tea.  Her jam and her gossip are wonderful.  Aunt Tucker might ask us too, with housekeeper Beck’s permission.  I like tea fights with the old Hindoos.  They like us too, Ben; we are the children of Hindoos also—­superior to the rest of the world.  There will be a party or two for this young person.”

“Parties be hanged!” he said.  “Then we must have a rout here, and I hate ’em.”

“But we owe an entertainment,” said Mrs. Somers.  “I have been thinking of giving one as soon as Mr. Somers gets out.”

“I have no such idea,” said Adelaide, with her back toward her mother.  “We shall have no party until some one has been given to our young friend, Ben.”