Aunt Leth, from the passage below, coughed aloud, having detected the presence of the young people, and there was an instant scuttling away above, and a sound of smothered laughter. To Aunt Leth's relief, this was not noticed by her visitors, who made their way into the drawing-room. It was called so more from habit than because it was a room set apart for holiday and grand occasions; there was no such room in the house of the Lethbridges, which was a home in the truest sense of the word. Aunt Leth was deeply impressed by the circumstance of having a celebrated author in her house, and when the drawing-room door was closed, she asked her husband in the passage--speaking in a very low tone--what he had written. "Why, don't you know, mother?" said Mr. Lethbridge; but the superior air he assumed--as though he was intimately acquainted with everything Mr. Linton had written, and was rather surprised at his wife's question--was spoilt by a shamefacedness which he was not clever enough to conceal. "No, father," said Mrs. Lethbridge; adding, triumphantly, "and I don't believe you do, either." "Well, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a little laugh, "I don't. But he _is_ very celebrated. Mr. Kiss says so. He writes plays, and his last one was not a success. It has troubled him greatly, poor fellow. Give us a good tea, mother." Mrs. Lethbridge nodded, and sent him in to his visitors, and went herself down to the kitchen to attend to her domestic arrangements, where she was presently joined by her children and Phoebe. "We don't want you, Bob," said Mrs. Lethbridge to her son; "go and join the gentlemen." "I'd sooner stop here, mother," said Robert. "Go away, there's a good boy," said the mother; "you will only put things back." Robert, however, showed no inclination to leave the kitchen, but hovered about Phoebe like a butterfly about a flower. "_Do_ you hear what mother says?" demanded Fanny, imperiously; she was given to lord it occasionally over her brother. "Go at once, and listen to the gentlemen, and have your mind improved." "Now you're chaffing me," said Robert, "and you know that always puts my back up." Mrs. Lethbridge looked around with affectionate distraction in her aspect. "Go, Robert," said Phoebe. "Not if you call me 'Robert,' said he. "Well, Bob." "All right, I'll vanish. Fanny, there's a smut on your nose."