After Mattie had bestowed her approbation upon Mr. Spelt for coming exactly to the hour, she took the brown tea-pot from the hob, the muffin from before the fire, and three herrings from the top of it, and put them all one after another upon the table. Then she would have placed chairs for them all, but was prevented by the gallantry of Mr. Spelt, and only succeeded in carrying to the head of the table her own high chair, on which she climbed up, and sat enthroned to pour out the tea. It was a noteworthy triad. On opposite sides of the table sat the meek tailor and the hawk-expressioned bookseller. The latter had a broad forehead and large, clear, light eyes. His nose--I never think a face described when the nose is forgotten: Chaucer never omits it--rose from between his eyes as if intending to make the true Roman arch, but having reached the keystone, held on upon the same high level, and did not descend, but ceased. He wore no beard, and bore his face in front of him like a banner. A strong pediment of chin and a long, thin-lipped mouth completed an expression of truculent good nature. Plenty of clear-voiced speech, a breezy defiance of nonsense in every tone, bore in it a certain cold but fierce friendliness, which would show no mercy to any weakness you might vaunt, but would drag none to the light you abstained from forcing into notice. Opposite to him sat the thoughtful, thin-visaged, small man, with his hair on end; and between them the staid, old-maidenly child, with her hair in bands on each side of the smooth solemnity of her face, the conceit of her gentle nature expressed only in the turn-up of her diminutive nose. The bookseller behaved to her as if she had been a grown lady. "Now, Miss Kitely," he said, "we shall have tea of the right sort, shan't we?" "I hope so," answered Mattie, demurely. "Help Mr. Spelt to a herring, father." "That I will, my princess. There, Mr. Spelt! There's a herring with a roe worth millions. To think, now, that every one of those eggs would be a fish like that, if it was only let alone!" "It's a great waste of eggs, ain't it, father?" said Mattie. "Mr. Spelt won't say so, my princess," returned Mr. Kitely, laughing. "He likes 'em." "I do like them," said the tailor. "Well, I dare say they're good for him, and it don't hurt them much," resumed Mattie, reflectively. "They'll go to his brains, and make him clever," said Kitely. "And you wouldn't call that a waste, would you, Mattie?" "Well, I don't know. I think Mr. Spelt's clever enough already. He's too much for me sometimes. I confess I can't always follow him."