“I am not so fond of having strangers to their dinner,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with great truth. “It’s very rarely that the invitation comes from me. And as for your prudence and your wisdom and your grand managing, it might perhaps be just as well, on the whole, for Effie if she had two strings to her bow.” Mrs. Ogilvie uttered a suppressed shriek in her astonishment. “For any sake! what, in the name of all that’s wonderful, are you meaning now?” “You give me no credit for ever meaning anything, or taking the least interest, so far as I can see, in what’s happening in my own family,” said the head of the house, standing on his dignity. “Oh, Robert, man! didn’t I send the young man to you, and would not listen to him myself! I said her father is the right person: and so you were, and very well you managed it, as you always do when you will take the trouble. But what is this about a second string to her bow?” Mr. Ogilvie _se faisait prier_. He would not at first relinquish the pride of superior knowledge. At last, when his wife had been tantalized sufficiently, he opened his budget. “The truth is, that things, very queer things, are said in London about Dirom’s house. There is a kind of a hint in the money article of the _Times_. You would not look at that, even if we got the _Times_. I saw it yesterday in Dumfries. They say ‘a great firm that has gone largely into mines of late’--and something about Basinghall Street, and a hope that their information may not be correct, and that sort of thing--which means more even than it says.” “Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. She sat down, in her consternation, upon Rory’s favourite toy lamb, which uttered the squeak peculiar to such pieces of mechanism. Probably this helped to increase her annoyance. She seized it with impatient warmth and flung it on the floor. “The horrible little beast!--But, Robert, this may be just a rumour. There are plenty of firms that do business in mines, and as for Basinghall Street, it’s just a street of offices. My own uncle had a place of business there.” “You’ll see I’m right for all that,” said her husband, piqued to have his information doubted. “Well, I’ll see it when I do see it; but I have just the most perfect confidence--What is this, George? Is there no answer? Well, you need not wait.” “I was to wait, mem,” said George, “to let the cook ken if there was nobody expected to their dinner; for in that case, mem, there was yon birds that was quite good, that could keep to another day.” “Cook’s just very impatient to send me such a message. Oh, well, you may tell her that there will be nobody to dinner. Mr. Dirom has to go to London in a hurry,” she said, half for the servant and half for her husband. She turned a glance full of alarm, yet defiance, upon the latter as old George trotted away. “Well, what do you say to that?” cried Mr. Ogilvie, with a mixture of satisfaction and vexation.