"What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling? You _shall_ have your dinner! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk, there's my watch, there are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster! The child must live! It can't go away in such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a parasol, anything--I'll go forth and get a lodging. I'll beg my bread from house to house, if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear! A little of the syrup, Alfred darling; it's very nice, love, and come to your old mother--your poor old mother." Alfred roared out, "No, it's not n--ice; it's n-a-a-sty! I won't have syrup. I _will_ have dinner." The mother, whose embraces the child repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them all four vehemently, and ran downstairs towards the parlour, whence Miss Honeyman was issuing. The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, until one of the nurses intrusted with the care of Master Alfred's dinner informed her that she was entertaining Lady Ann Newcome; and that the pretty girl was the fair Miss Ethel; the little sick boy, the little Alfred of whom his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run off to St. James Street for a chicken, she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding, as she only knew how to make batter puddings. Then she went to array herself in her best clothes, as we have seen; then she came to wait upon Lady Ann, not a little flurried as to the result of that queer interview; then she whisked out of the drawing-room, as before has been shown; and, finding the chicken roasted to a turn, the napkin and tray ready spread by Hannah the neat-handed, she was bringing them up to the little patient when the frantic parent met her on the stair. "Is it--is it for my child?" cried Lady Ann, reeling against the bannister. "Yes, it's for the child," says Miss Honeyman, tossing up her head. "But nobody else has anything in the house." "God bless you! God bless you! A mother's bl--l-ess-ings go with you," gurgled the lady, who was not, it must be confessed, a woman of strong moral character. It was good to see the little man eating the fowl. Ethel, who had never cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers now and then with her brother's and her governess's penknives, bethought her of asking Miss Honeyman to carve the chicken. Lady Ann, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sat looking on at the ravishing scene. "Why did you not let us know you were Clive's aunt?" Ethel asked, putting out her hand. The old lady took hers very kindly, and said, "Because you didn't give me time,--and do you love Clive, my dear?"