The tone, more even than the words, made Christian flush up, but she did not reply. She had already learned not to reply to these sharp speeches of Miss Gascoigne's, which, she noticed, fell on every body alike. "What Miss Grey bears, I suppose I can," thought she to herself when many times during the last two weeks she had been addressed in a manner which somewhat surprised her, as being a mode of speech more fitting from a school-mistress to a naughty school-girl than from a sister to a young wife, or, indeed, from any lady to any other lady--at least, according to her code of manners. "You may talk as you like!" continued Miss Gascoigne, glancing at the far end of the room, where the master was deeply busied in searching for a book, "but I object to these morning walks; and I am certain Dr. Grey also would object, if he knew of them." "He does know." "And does he approve? Impossible! Only think, Maria, if our poor dear sister had done such a thing!" "Oh, hush, Henrietta!" cried Maria, appealingly, as Dr. Grey came back and sat himself placidly down at the breakfast-table, with his big book beside him. He had apparently not heard a single word. Yet he looked so good and sweet--yes, sweet is the only fitting word; a gentle simplicity like a child's, which always seemed to hover round this bookish learned man--that the womenkind were silenced--as, by a most fortunate instinct, women generally are in presence of their masculine relatives. They may quarrel enough among themselves, but they seem to feel that men either will not understand it or not endure it. That terrible habit of "talking over" by which most women "nurse their wrath and keep it warm," is happily to men almost impossible. Breakfast was never a lively meal at the Lodge. After the first few days Dr. Grey took refuge in his big book, which for years Miss Gascoigne averred he had always kept beside him at meal-times. Not good behavior in a paterfamilias, but the habit told its own tale. Very soon Christian neither marveled at nor blamed him. Never in all her life, not even during the few months that she lived with the Fergusons, had she sat at a family table; yet she had always had a favorite ideal of what a family table ought to be--bright, cheerful, a sort of domestic altar, before which every one cast down his or her offering, great or small, of pleasantness and peace; where for at least a brief space in the day all annoyances were laid aside, all stormy tempers hushed, all quarrels healed; everyone being glad and content to sit down at the same board, and eat the same bread and salt, making it, whether it were a fatted calf or a dinner of herbs, equally a joyful, almost sacramental meal.