never would add up twice alike, and the butcher was so inconsistent and slippery about his prices, sometimes charging 7d. and sometimes 7-1/2d. as “if once a pound of mutton, always a pound of mutton,” were not an incontrovertible axiom; and the baker was as bad, besides choosing to spell dough, d.o.e., which at first made her think that he was the butcher and sold venison; and the hams seemed always to come from the tallow-chandler’s with the candles, which wasn’t by any means an agreeable association of ideas; and the footman was evidently of Esquimaux descent, and lived sumptuously upon lamp-oil at 8s. the gallon; and the coachman appeared to feed the carriage-horses with sponges, wash-leather, and rotten-stone, which she was sure could not be good for them; and she thought the under-housemaid had ordered herself a “Turk’s-head” dessert-cake, for her own private eating, but it turned out to be a particular species of broom; while the amount of hearth-stones and house-flannels that girl consumed would have served to build an “Albert pattern” model cottage once a quarter, and furnish the pauper inhabitants thereof with winter clothing: so that by the time luncheon arrived poor Alice, tired and confused, with inky fingers and an aching head, had come to the conclusion that she had nothing in common with Joseph Hume, M.P., and that for the future she should resign the glory of managing the housekeeper’s book to Mrs. Gripples, and restrict her department to the equally dignified, but less onerous, duty of making Harry sign the cheques, and handing them over to that august domestic to pay the bills with. CHAPTER XXI.--THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY.