"Oh, yes, I am. Only I never can bear to drink tea alone. I think it a great promoter of sociability, and I only indulge in it when I have some one to keep me company." "Then come and keep me company for once," said Miriam, with a smile, her magnificent eyes looking full into his face. He shrank a little before that full-orbed gaze. For a moment or two the colour left his lips. He smiled faintly, and rubbed his hands together, as though he were cold. "If I had the inclination to refuse--which, indeed, I have not," he said, "it would be impossible for me to do so after such an invitation. I can quite imagine that your life here is a little dull at times," he added, as he drew a chair up to the table. "It certainly cannot be called a very lively one," returned Miriam, as she began to pour out the tea. "Poor dear papa is both very old and very feeble, and then his deafness is a great drawback, and makes home duller than it would otherwise be." "But you have a brother, have you not?" "Yes, one brother." "In the city?" "No, not in the city. He is secretary to a gentleman at the west end." Peter Byrne, after sniffing once or twice at the flowers, toddled back to his easy-chair by the fire, and spreading his handkerchief over his knees, waited patiently for his tea. This Miriam now took to him; placing it on a little low table in front of him. "Good girl, good girl," he said. Then, turning suddenly on Van Duren, he added, "When I was a young spark, I always liked to have a flower in my button-hole. The girls used to beg them of me--bless their pretty eyes! I daresay the young hussies nowadays do the very same thing." Max Van Duren, at this time, was fifty years old. He was not very tall, but broad-set and strongly built. His coarse, short-cut, sandy hair showed as yet few traces of age. His face was closely shaven, so that whatever character there was in it could be clearly seen without the disguise of beard or moustache. A massive jaw; a close-shut mouth, with its straight line of thin lips; heavy, overhanging eyebrows, and small, deep-set eyes of a cold, steel gray: such were the prominent features of a face that was full of power, self-will, and obstinacy. His ears were pierced, but the small gold rings he had worn in them when a young man had been discarded years ago. Professional beggars are generally pretty good students of facial character, and no member of that fraternity had ever been known to solicit alms from Max Van Duren. He had not been used to female society, and he felt himself altogether out of his element as he sat at the tea-table and was waited upon by Miriam.