A favourite mode of correction in days when Miss Esperance was young was the substitution of bread and water for whatever meal happened to come nearest the time of the offence: and for the little boys poignancy was added to this dismal diet by the knowledge that their aunt tasted nothing else at her own meal during such times of abstinence for them. From such punishment, all suspicion of revenge—which, in the chastened one, so often nullifies the desired result—was entirely eliminated; and the children quite understood that they were being corrected for the good of their souls, and not because their aunt required a vent for her annoyance at their misdeeds. Sunday dinner, however—the day on which by his own request Mr. Wycherly took his mid-day meal with Miss Esperance and the children—had hitherto been exempt from any such punitive mortification of the carnal appetites. Indeed, Mr. Wycherly had imbued it with a certain Elizabethan flavour of festivity and cheerfulness, and here, greatly to his surprise, he was warmly seconded by Elsa, who grudged no extra cooking to make the Sabbath-day dinner particularly appetising. From the time that Mr. Wycherly had asserted his right to throw his all into the common lot, things had been easier at Remote, and old Elsa did not forget his enthusiastic eagerness to further her endeavours that her mistress should have a peaceful and proper breakfast. Therefore when it became the established custom for Mr. Wycherly to carve the joint on Sundays, she was ever ready to fall in with any small plans he might make for the benefit of the little boys. And now Edmund had been naughty on the Sabbath, and Mr. Wycherly knew what to expect. Bread, watered by his tears, for Edmund. Bread, seasoned only by sorrowful reflection, for Miss Esperance. Banishment for hungry Edmund if he cried aloud, and there were ducks for dinner, large fat ducks sent by Lady Alicia. Mr. Wycherly could smell the stuffing even now. Who would believe that the smell of sage and onions could bear so mournful a message? The Greek characters of the Philebus he held in his hand danced before his eyes. He could not give his mind to the philosophy of beauty or the theory of pleasure. The doctrine of æsthetical, moral, and intellectual harmonies, pleasing as it was to him on ordinary occasions, failed to hold him just then, when all his mental vision was concentrated on a chubby, tearful figure whose misdeeds would debar him from duck for dinner. Mr. Wycherly laid down his "Plato" and began to pace the room restlessly, finally taking up his stand at the window looking out on the garden. Where was that boy? Where had the monkey hidden himself? He was not with Mause, for Mr. Wycherly could see the old dog lying in a patch of sunshine on the little plot of grass.