“Oh!” said little Mrs. Hesketh. She did not like criticism any more than the rest of us, nor did she like being identified with “poor people". Mr. Mannering’s wise yet foolish aphorism (for how did he know how much it cost to have clean linen in Bloomsbury--or Belgravia either, for that matter?) referred to persons in his own condition, not in hers; but naturally she did not think of that. Her pride and her blood were up, however; and she went with a little hurry and vehemence to a drawer and took out a clean tablecloth. Sixpence was the cost of washing, and she could not afford to throw away sixpences, and the other one had only been used three or four times; but her pride, as I have said, was up. “And where are the napkins?” said Dora. “I’ll lay it for you. I really like to do it: and a nicely-laid table, with the crystal sparkling, and the silver shining, and the linen so fresh and smooth, is a very pretty object to look at, father always says.” “Oh dear! I must hurry up,” cried Mrs. Hesketh; “I hear Alfred’s step upon the stairs.” Now Dora did not admire Alfred, though she was fond of Alfred’s wife. He brought a sniff of the shop with him; which was disagreeable to the girl, and he called her “miss,” which Dora hated. She threw down the tablecloth hurriedly. “Oh, I’ll leave you then,” she cried, “for I’m sure he does not like to see me here when he comes in.” “Oh, Miss Dora, how can you think such a thing?” cried her friend; but she was glad of the success of her expedient when her visitor disappeared. Alfred, indeed, did not come in for half an hour after; but Mrs. Hesketh was at liberty to make her little domestic arrangements in her own way. Alfred, like herself, knew that a tablecloth cost sixpence every time it went to the wash--which Dora, it was evident, did not do. Dora found her father reading in exactly the same position as she had left him; he had not moved except to turn a leaf. He raised his head when she came in, and said: “I am glad you have come back, Dora. I want you to get me a book out of that bookcase in the corner. It is on the third shelf.” “And were you so lazy, father, that you would not get up to find it yourself?” “Yes, I was so lazy,” he said, with a laugh. “I get lazier and lazier every day. Besides, I like to feel that I have some one to do it for me. I am taking books out of shelves and putting them back again all the day long.” Dora put her arm on her father’s shoulder, as she put down the book on the table before him. “But you like it, don’t you, father? You are not tired of it.” “Of the Museum?” he said, with a laugh and a look of surprise. “No; I am not tired of it--any more than I am of my life.” This was an enigmatical reply, but Dora did not attempt to fathom it. “What the little people upstairs want is just to have money enough to live on, and nothing to do,” she said. “The little people? And what are you, Dora? You are not so very big.”