Where do they get their daily morsels of bread, and their poor cups of thin tea,—­their cups of thin tea, with perhaps a pennyworth of gin added to it, if Providence be good!  Of this state of things Mrs Roper had a lively appreciation, and now, poor woman, she feared that she was reaching it, by the aid of the Lupexes.  On the present occasion she carved her joint of meat in silence, and sent out her slices to the good guests that would leave her, and to the bad guests that would remain, with apathetic impartiality.  What was the use now of doing favour to one lodger or disfavour to another?  Let them take their mutton,—­they who would pay for it and they who would not.  She would not have the carving of many more joints in that house if Chumpend acted up to all the threats which he had uttered to her that morning.

The reader may, perhaps, remember the little back room behind the dining parlour.  A description was given in some former pages of an interview which was held between Amelia and her lover.  It was in that room that all the interviews of Mrs Roper’s establishment had their existence.  A special room for interviews is necessary in all households of a mixed nature.  If a man lives alone with his wife, he can have his interviews where he pleases.  Sons and daughters, even when they are grown up, hardly create the necessity of an interview-chamber, though some such need may be felt if the daughters are marriageable and independent in their natures.  But when the family becomes more complicated than this, if an extra young man be introduced, or an aunt comes into residence, or grown up children by a former wife interfere with the domestic simplicity, then such accommodation becomes quite indispensable.  No woman would think of taking in lodgers without such a room; and this room there was at Mrs Roper’s, very small and dingy, but still sufficient,—­just behind the dining parlour and opposite to the kitchen stairs.  Hither, after dinner, Amelia was summoned.  She had just seated herself between Mrs Lupex and Miss Spruce, ready to do battle with the former because she would stay, and with the latter because she would go, when she was called out by the servant girl.

“Miss Mealyer, Miss Mealyer,—­sh-sh-sh!” And Amelia, looking round, saw a large red hand beckoning to her.  “He’s down there,” said Jemima, as soon as her young mistress had joined her, “and wants to see you most partic’lar.”

“Which of ’em?” asked Amelia, in a whisper.

“Why, Mr Heames, to be sure.  Don’t you go and have anythink to say to the other one, Miss Mealyer, pray don’t; he ain’t no good; he ain’t indeed.”