'Papa,' said Mrs. Mafferton, 'this is Miss Wick, of whom we have all heard so much.' She spoke very close to the ear of an old gentleman in an arm-chair screened from the fire, with one leg stretched out on a rest; but he did not understand, and she had to say it over again: 'Miss Wick, of whom we have all heard so much. Poor dear! he does not hear very well,' Mrs. Mafferton added to me. 'You must use the speaking-trumpet, I fear, Miss Wick.' 'Well,' said old Mr. Mafferton, after shaking hands with me and apologising for not rising, 'if this is Miss Wick, I don't see why I shouldn't have a kiss too.' At which Mrs. Mafferton and all the young ladies laughed and protested, 'Oh, fie, papa!' For my part I began to think this idiosyncrasy singularly common to the family. Then the eldest Miss Mafferton put one end of a long black speaking-trumpet into my hand, and Mr. Mafferton, seeing her do this, applied the other to his ear. I had nothing whatever to say, but, overcome with the fear of seeming rude, I was raising it to my lips and thinking hard when I felt two anxious hands upon my arm. 'Do excuse us!' exclaimed a Miss Mafferton, 'but if you wouldn't mind holding it just a little farther from your lips, please! We are obliged to tell everybody. Otherwise the voice makes quite a distressing noise in his poor ears.' At which every semblance of an idea left me instantly. Yet I must say something--Mr. Mafferton was waiting at the other end of the tube. This was the imbecility I gave expression to. 'I came here in a cab!' I said. It was impossible to think of anything else. That was not a very propitious beginning; and Mr. Mafferton's further apology for not being able to take me down to dinner, on the ground that he had to be taken down by the butler himself, did not help matters in the very least. At dinner I sat upon Mr. Mafferton's right, with the coiling length of the speaking-trumpet between us. The brother came in just before we went down--a thin young man with a ragged beard, a curate. Of course, a curate being there, we began with a blessing. Then Mrs. Mafferton said, 'I hope you won't mind our not having asked any one else, Miss Wick. We were selfish enough to want you, this first evening, all to ourselves.' It was certainly the Mafferton idiosyncrasy to be extravagantly kind. I returned that nothing could have been more delightful for me. 'Except that we think that dear naughty Lady Torquilin should have come too!' said the youngest Miss Mafferton. It began to seem to me that none of these young ladies considered themselves entitled to an opinion in the first person singular. An idea appeared to be, as it were, a family product. 'She was very sorry,' I said. 'And so, I am sure, are we,' remarked Mrs. Mafferton, graciously, from the other end of the table. 'It was through dear Lady Torquilin, I believe, that you first met our son, Miss Wick?'