“I’m his true friend; and stiddy well-wisher, as much good as I could do him; and Mr. Harry has always been very kind,” said the housekeeper, putting her master’s sentiment in her own softest words; “but he has said nothing to me. I did not look for it. He would not, being one of the proud Joscelyns, saving your presence, Sir, take a servant into his confidence. Though he’s aye been very kind.” “We are proud, are we?” said her master, with a half smile; “well, perhaps that is a fault of the Joscelyns, Mrs. Eadie. You can send him to me when he wakes. Of course now that he is here I must listen to what he has to say.” But Mr. Henry sighed. He ate that delicious kidney with an internal sense of annoyance which took half the savour out of it. He said to himself that it was always the case: when he came down in the morning with any unusual sentiment of comfort and well-being, something always happened to put him out. As sure as that light-heartedness came, something would follow to pull him down, something would go wrong in the Club, or his conduct in some petty session case would be aspersed in the “Wyburgh Gazette,” or some old friend of his boyhood would send him a begging letter, or--still more annoying, something about the White House family would interfere with his digestion. “I might have known,” he said to himself. He had got up at peace with all men; with absolutely no care which he could think of when he woke and swept the mental horizon for causes of inconvenience, as it is one of the privileges of humanity to do--absolutely nothing to bring him any vexation or annoyance. He had believed that he was going to have a comfortable day. A little uneasiness which he had felt in his foot (he did not say, even to himself, in his toe), had gone off; a stiffness which he had been conscious of had disappeared; the wind had changed, going round to the southward, and the morning was quite warm for the time of the year. He had not been buffeted about by the night wind, as Harry had, and at six in the morning, when poor Harry was so cold, he had been as warm as he could desire in bed. When he came down stairs the fire was just as he liked it, the newspaper with the chill taken off it, neatly cut, and folded, and a letter from the Duke, with a seal as big as a penny, was lying by his plate. It was an invitation, and Mr. Henry was much pleased. Never had a day begun more auspiciously. He had sat down, opened his napkin, poured out for himself an aromatic cup of coffee, laid the newspaper before him conveniently, so as to be able to glance his eye over the news, while he addressed himself to the more solid part of the meal. And it was while he was thus beginning the day, in peace with himself and all about him, that “the woman,” as he called his housekeeper when anything went wrong, appeared with that kidney, and the cloud which was to overshadow the whole day. Of course it must be something wrong.