“Well, ma’am,” began Mrs. Peckover, “it’s almost as great a surprise to me to be in London, as it is--Be quiet, young Good-for-Nothing; I won’t even shake hands with you if you don’t behave yourself!” These last words she addressed to Zack, whose favorite joke it had always been, from the day of their first acquaintance at Valentine’s house, to pretend to be violently in love with her. He was now standing with his arms wide open, the toasting-fork in one hand and the muffin he had burnt in the other, trying to look languishing, and entreating Mrs. Peckover to give him a kiss. “When you know how to toast a muffin properly, p’raps I may give you one,” said she, chuckling as triumphantly over her own small retort as if she had been a professed wit. “Do, Mr. Blyth, sir, please to keep him quiet, or I shan’t be able to get on with a single word of what I’ve got to say. Well, you see, ma’am, Doctor Joyce--” “How is he?” interrupted Valentine, handing Mrs. Peckover a cup of tea. “He’s the best gentleman in the world, sir, but he will have his glass of port after dinner; and the end of it is, he’s laid up again with the gout.” “And Mrs. Joyce?” “Laid up too, sir--it’s a dreadful sick house at the Rectory--laid up with the inferlenzer.” “Have any of the children caught the influenza too?” asked Mrs. Blyth. “I hope not.” “No, ma’am, they’re all nicely, except the youngest; and it’s on account of her--don’t you remember her, sir, growing so fast, when you was last at the Rectory?--that I’m up in London. “Is the child ill?” asked Valentine anxiously. “She’s such a picturesque little creature, Lavvie! I long to paint her.” “I’m afraid, sir, she’s not fit to be put into a picter now,” said Mrs. Peckover. “Mrs. Joyce is in sad trouble about her, because of one of her shoulders which has growed out somehow. The doctor at Rubbleford don’t doubt but what it may be got right again; but he said she ought to be shown to some great London doctor as soon as possible. So, neither her papa nor her mamma being able to take her up to her aunt’s house, they trusted her to me. As you know, sir, ever since Doctor Joyce got my husband that situation at Rubbleford, I’ve been about the Rectory, helping with the children and the housekeeping, and all that:--and Miss Lucy being used to me, we come along together in the railroad quite pleasant and comfortable. I was glad enough, you may be sure, of the chance of getting here, after not having seen little Mary for so long. So I just left Miss Lucy at her aunt’s, where they were very kind, and wanted me to stop all night. But I told them that, thanks to your goodness, I always had a bed here when I was in London; and I took the cab on, after seeing the little girl safe and comfortable up-stairs. That’s the whole story of how I come to surprise you in this way, ma’am,--and now I’ll finish my tea.”