“I don’t think you heard,” he began “that there is another partner in our firm—a cousin of my father’s—James Horner. I dare say you will not come across him very much, but he is fond of interfering now and then, and sometimes if my father is away he gets fussy and annoying. He is not at all popular in the shop, and I thought I would just warn you beforehand, though of course you are not exactly expecting a bed of roses.” It would have been hard to say exactly what Frithiof was expecting; his whole life had been unstrung, and this new beginning represented to him merely a certain amount of monotonous work to the tune of five-and-twenty shillings a week. When they reached Rowan Tree House they found a carriage waiting at the door. “Talk of the angel and its wings appear,” said Roy. “The Horners are calling here. What a nuisance!” Frithiof felt inclined to echo this sentiment when he found himself in the pretty drawing-room once more and became conscious of the presence of an overdressed woman and a bumptious little man with mutton-chop whiskers and inquisitive eyes, whose air of patronage would have been comical had it not been galling to his Norwegian independence. Roy had done well to prepare him, for nothing could have been so irritating to his sensitive refinement as the bland self-satisfaction, the innate vulgarity of James Horner. Mrs. Boniface and Cecil greeted him pleasantly, and Mrs. Horner bowed her lofty bonnet with dignity when he was introduced to her, and uttered a platitude about the weather in an encouraging tone, which speedily changed, however, when she discovered that he was actually “one of the hands.” “The Bonifaces have no sense of what is fitting,” she said afterward to her husband. “The idea of introducing one of the shopmen to me! I never go into Loveday’s drawing-room without longing to leave behind me a book on etiquette.” “She’s a well-meaning soul,” said James Horner condescendingly. “But countrified still, and unpolished. It’s strange after so many years of London life.” “Not strange at all,” retorted Mrs. Horner snappishly. “She never tries to copy correct models, so how’s it likely her manners should improve. I’m not at all partial to Cecil either. They’ll never make a stylish girl of her with their ridiculous ideas about stays and all that. I’ll be bound her waist’s a good five-and-twenty inches.” “Oh, well, my dear, I really don’t see much to find fault with in Cecil.” “But I do,” said Mrs. Horner emphatically. “For all her quietness there’s a deal of obstinacy about the girl. I should like to know what she means to do with that criminal’s children that she has foisted on the family! I detest people who are always doing _outré_ things like that; it’s all of a piece with their fads about no stays and Jaeger’s woolen clothes. The old customs are good enough for me, and I’m sure rather than let myself grow as stout as Loveday I’d tight-lace night as well as day.” “She’s not much of a figure, it’s true.”