of the passage (alias hall), while the attendant of all work went to announce his arrival in the rectory dining-room on the other side.  Here Mrs Armstrong was sitting among her numerous progeny, securing the debris of the dinner from their rapacious paws, and endeavouring to make two very unruly boys consume the portions of fat which had been supplied to them with, as they loudly declared, an unfairly insufficient quantum of lean.  As the girl was good-natured enough to leave both doors wide open, Frank had the full advantage of the conversation.

“Now, Greg,” said the mother, “if you leave your meat that way I’ll have it put by for you, and you shall have nothing but potatoes till it’s ate.”

“Why, mother, it’s nothing but tallow; look here; you gave me all the outside part.”

“I’ll tell your dada, and see what he’ll say, if you call the meat tallow; and you’re just as bad, Joe; worse if anything—­gracious me, here’s waste! well, I’ll lock it up for you, and you shall both of you eat it to-morrow, before you have a bit of anything else.”

Then followed a desperate fit of coughing.

“My poor Minny!” said the mother, “you’re just as bad as ever.  Why would you go out on the wet grass?—­Is there none of the black currant jam left?”

“No, mother,” coughed Minny, “not a bit.”

“Greg ate it all,” peached Sarah, an elder sister; “I told him not, but he would.”

“Greg, I’ll have you flogged, and you never shall come from school again.  What’s that you’re saying, Mary?”

“There’s a jintleman in the drawing-room as is axing afther masther.”

“Gentleman—­what gentleman?” asked the lady.

“Sorrow a know I know, ma’am!” said Mary, who was a new importation—­“only, he’s a dark, sightly jintleman, as come on a horse.”

“And did you send for the master?”

“I did, ma’am; I was out in the yard, and bad Patsy go look for him.”

“It’s Nicholas Dillon, I’ll bet twopence,” said Greg, jumping up to rush into the other room:  “he’s come about the black colt, I know.”

“Stay where you are, Greg; and don’t go in there with your dirty face and fingers;” and, after speculating a little longer, the lady went into the drawing-room herself; though, to tell the truth, her own face and fingers were hardly in a state suitable for receiving company.

Mrs Armstrong marched into the drawing-room with something of a stately air, to meet the strange gentleman, and there she found her old friend Lord Ballindine.  Whoever called at the rectory, and at whatever hour the visit might be made, poor Mrs Armstrong was sure to apologise for the confusion in which she was found.  She had always just got rid of a servant, and could not get another that suited her; or there was some other commonplace reason for her being discovered en deshabille [40].  However, she managed to talk to Frank for a minute or two with tolerable volubility,