“Here, Roger, your Aunt Mary,” said his mother; and instantly there was a subduing of the young sailor’s boisterous mirth, as he turned to answer her gentle welcome.  The laugh arose the next moment at the appearance of the still half-disguised actors:  Alex without Bassanio’s short black cloak and slouched hat and feather, but still retaining his burnt cork eyebrows and moustache, and wondering that Roger did not know him; Uncle Geoffrey still in Shylock’s yellow cap, and Fred somewhat grim with the Prince of Morocco’s complexion.

“How d’ye do, Phil?” said Roger, returning his cousinly shake of the hand with interest.  “What! are not you Philip Carey?”

“O, Roger, Roger!” cried a small figure, in whom the Italian maiden predominated.

“What, Aunt Geoffrey masquerading too?  How d’ye do, aunt?”

“Well done, Roger!  That’s right!  Go on!” cried his father, laughing heartily.

“Is it not my aunt?  No?  Is it the little Bee, then?  Why you are grown as like her!  But where is Aunt Geoffrey then?  Not here?  That is a bore.  I thought you would have all been in port here at Christmas.  And is not this Philip?  Come tell me, some of you, instead of laughing there.  Are you Fred Langford, then?”

“Right this time,” said Fred, “so now you must shake hands with me in my own name.”

“Very glad to do so, and see you here at last,” said Roger, cordially.  “And now tell me, what is all this about?  One would think you were crossing the Line?”

“You shall hear what it is all about, and see too,” said Mr. Langford.  “We must have that wicked old Jew disappointed, must not we, Willy?  But where is my little Portia?  What is become of her?”

“Fled, I suspect,” said her mother, “gone to turn into herself before her introduction.”

“O, Roger, it was so jolly,” Carey was now heard to say above the confusion of voices.  “Uncle Geoffrey was an old Jew, going to cut a pound of flesh out of Fred, and Henrietta was making a speech in a lawyer’s wig, and had just found such a dodge!”

“Ha! like the masks in the carnival at Rio!  Ferrars and I went ashore there, and—­”

“Have you been at Sutton Leigh, Roger?”

“Have you dined?”

“Cold turkey—­excellent Christmas pie, only too much pepper—­a cup of tea—­no, but we will have the beef in—­”

Further conversation was suspended by these propositions, with the answers and thanks resulting therefrom, but in the midst grandpapa exclaimed, “Ah! here she is!  Here is the counsellor!  Here is a new cousin for you, Roger; here is the advocate for you when you have a tough law-suit!  Lucky for you, Master Geoffrey, that she is not a man, or your nose would soon be put out of joint.  You little rogue!  How dared you make your mother and grandfather cry their hearts out?”

“I was very glad to see you as bad as myself, sir,” said Mrs. Frederick Langford.  “I was very much ashamed of being so foolish, but then, you know, I could hardly ever read through that scene without crying.”