After telling this last romance, and leaving her visitors in doubt whether the joints referred to belonged to an animal or to her sister’s aunt or to herself, Mrs. Sampson crackled away downstairs to get things ready.

“What a curious thing that landlady of yours is, Brian,” said Madge, from the depths of a huge arm-chair.  “I believe she’s a grasshopper from the Fitzroy Gardens.”

“Oh, no, she’s a woman,” said Mr. Frettlby, cynically.  “You can tell that by the length of her tongue.”

“A popular error, papa,” retorted Madge, sharply.  “I know plenty of men who talk far more than any woman.”

“I hope I’ll never meet them, then,” said Mr. Frettlby, “for if I did I should be inclined to agree with De Quincey on murder as a fine art.”

Brian winced at this, and looked apprehensively at Madge, and saw with relief that she was not paying attention to her father, but was listening intently.

“There she is,” as a faint rustle at the door announced the arrival of Mrs. Sampson and the tea-tray.  “I wonder, Brian, you don’t think the house is on fire with that queer noise always going on—­she wants oil!”

“Yes, St. Jacob’s oil,” laughed Brian, as Mrs. Sampson entered, and placed her burden on the table.

“Not ‘avin’ any cake,” said that lady, “thro’ not being forewarned as to the time of arrival—­tho’ it’s not ofting I’m taken by surprise—­except as to a ’eadache, which, of course, is accidental to every pusson—­I ain’t got nothin’ but bread and butter, the baker and grocer both bein’ all that could be desired, except in the way of worryin’ for their money, which they thinks as ’ow I keeps the bank in the ’ouse, like Allading’s cave, as I’ve ’eard tell in the Arabian Nights, me ‘avin’ gained it as a prize for English in my early girl’ood, bein’ then considered a scholard an’ industrus.”

Mrs. Sampson’s shrill apologies for the absence of cake having been received, she hopped out of the room, and Madge made the tea.  The service was a quaint Chinese one, which Brian had picked up in his wanderings.  He used it only on special occasions.  As he watched Madge he could not help thinking how pretty she looked, with her hands moving deftly among the cups and saucers, so bizarre-looking with their sprawling dragons of yellow and green.  He half smiled to himself as he thought, “If they knew all, I wonder if they would sit with me so unconcernedly.”

Mr. Frettlby, too, as he looked at his daughter, thought of his dead wife and sighed.

“Well,” said Madge, as she handed them their tea, and helped herself to some thin bread and butter, “you two gentlemen are most delightful company—­papa is sighing like 3 furnace, and Brian is staring at me with his eyes like blue china saucers.  You ought both to be turned forth to funerals like melancholy.”

“Why like melancholy?” queried Brian, lazily.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said the young lady with 3 smile in her pretty black eyes, “that you are not a student of ’A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”