She invited us into the little front parlour. This room was almost entirely filled with a full-sized grand piano, which ’Uncle John’ had bought at a sale cheap, owing to the fact that most of the notes were missing, ’But then,’ as he explained, ’look at the case, real Hebony.’ He came in a few minutes after, looking a perfect ragamuffin in his stained overalls and battered hat, not at all a suitable mate for the resplendent vision in silk and melon seeds. The pair rather reminded me of Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance—she dressed for dinner in all her finery and jewels and he just come in from grubbing out a foundation of a buried abbey. And ’Aunt John’ looked at ’Uncle John’ in much the same way that Aunt Constance looks at Uncle Jasper under the same circumstances. ’Fair caught, I am,’ he exclaimed affably, shaking hands all round; ’ain’t had it off yet, then?’ he said to Ross by way of cheering up an invalid. And then with great pride he added, reverting to his first paragraph, ’but the missis fair makes up for it, don’t she, always dressed up like a ’am bone of an afternoon is Sarah.’ ’Well, mum,’ he said, turning to me, ’I got your letter, and it’s a fair blow, that it is; I don’t say but what wall-papers ain’t expensive and likely to go up, but if you could ’ave afforded the yaller with the cream stripe I think it would ’ave fair made the place. Perhaps if you wrote and told yer ’usband ’ow much better I say it would look ’e might be willing to do a bust for once, especially as you don’t seem to cost ’im much in clothes,’ and he glanced at my plain tweed skirt. Here Ross tittered, as I happened to have mentioned at lunch the price I had paid for the garment in question. ’’Owever, it ain’t for me to say,’ said ’Uncle John,’ ’owe no man nothing is my motter and always ’as been, and it ain’t always that I could give the wife a silk dress for the afternoon, is it, Sarah?’ Sarah, with ready tact, changed the conversation by offering us tea, and observed that John was always ’a bit free with his tongue.’ ’Oh, no offence intended, I’m sure,’ said ’Uncle John,’ but the dear soul has it firmly fixed in his mind that we are rather poor, and he keeps assuring me that he will keep expenses down as much as possible. He will begin the work on Friday, with the owner’s consent, although the deeds will not be actually signed by then. I hope we shall be in ’Our House’ by the middle of March. When we returned from calling on ’Uncle John’ I found a letter asking me to go to Staple Inn this week to sign some deeds. But why should they want me to do that when Ross has Michael’s Power of Attorney? I asked my brother if he knew, but he professed the most profound ignorance of everything in heaven and earth, except the evening paper (which was private). So I had to possess my soul in patience all night, and this morning when we got to the lawyer’s office I discovered two conspiracies.