The touched intonation with which he utters the phrase shows her that he attributes her palpitation entirely to the joyful emotion caused by his return, and how absolutely unsuspicious he is of any other possible cause for it; and her impersonation of Judas appears to herself more lifelike than ever, as she answers with a desperate playfulness-- “You have learnt a new fact in natural history.” Rupert does not immediately follow the slow little procession to the study, whither Sir George, with a nostalgia for his own chair, chooses to be led, occupied, doubtless, with directions to the servants; and there is time for the “surprise” to be detected and admired, and for several anthems of thanksgiving, not worded exactly as the rector would have done them in church, on the part of Sir George on having at last escaped from the d----d pot-house before his son rejoins them. As he enters the room, Rupert’s father is in the act of asking how the newly papered “nurseries” look; and, on Lavinia’s faltering avowal that she has not seen them since they were finished, starts irritably up, announcing his intention of immediately visiting them, to see whether the papers are well hung, or exhibit seams between the strips, as had been the case with Hodges’ work in the offices last year. It is in vain that both Rupert and Lavinia entreat him to defer his survey till after tea. With a reproachful observation, that “if you want a thing done you must do it yourself,” he sets off, and the young man and girl follow, offering him attentions which he ignores. The sight of well-executed work restores him to good humour, and he keeps his young people dancing attendance on him for some time, to admire at their leisure, and with what countenances they may, the airy spaces where their problematical offspring are to sport. Fear of betraying the loathing that the idea of her own possible motherhood brings with it, perhaps partially dulls Lavinia’s sense of that repulsion. Tea-time brings another ordeal with it. “I cannot say that you do much credit to the Princes’ cuisine,” says Sir George, taking stock of his niece more closely than he has yet done, having, in fact, ordered her to move the skilfully interposed tea-kettle, or her own chair, so as to enable him to do so. “You must have lost quite a stone in weight since I left home.” “Don’t you know, sir, that there is nothing that the young woman of to-day dreads so much as putting on an ounce of superfluous flesh?” asks Rupert.