though he had the pleasure of Miss Grey's acquaintance, had no idea of the nature of the duties which she performed in the firm. "I'm nearly broken-hearted about this abominable business," said Mr. Grey, as he went upstairs to his dressing room. The normal hour for dinner was half-past six. He had arrived on this occasion at half-past seven, and had paid a shilling extra to the cabman to drive him quick. The man, having a lame horse, had come very slowly, fidgeting Mr. Grey into additional temporary discomfort. He had got his additional shilling, and Mr. Grey had only additional discomfort. "I declare I think he is the wickedest old man the world ever produced." This he said as Dolly followed him upstairs; but Dolly, wiser than her father, would say nothing about the wicked old man in the servants' hearing. In five minutes Mr. Grey came down "dressed,"--by the use of which word was implied the fact that he had shaken his neckcloth, washed his hands and face, and put on his slippers. It was understood in the household that, though half-past six was the hour named for dinner, half-past seven was a much more probable time. Mr. Grey pertinaciously refused to have it changed. "Stare super vias antiquas," he had stoutly said when the proposition had been made to him; by which he had intended to imply that, as during the last twenty years he had been compelled to dine at half-past six instead of six, he did not mean to be driven any farther in the same direction. Consequently his cook was compelled to prepare his dinner in such a manner that it might be eaten at one hour or the other, as chance would have it. The dinner passed without much conversation other than incidental to Mr. Grey's wants and comforts. His daughter knew that he had been at the office for eight hours, and knew also that he was not a young man. Every kind of little cosseting was, therefore, applied to him. There was a pheasant for dinner, and it was essentially necessary, in Dolly's opinion, that he should have first the wing, quite hot, and then the leg, also hot, and that the bread-sauce should be quite hot on the two occasions. For herself, if she had had an old crow for dinner it would have been the same thing. Tea and bread-and-butter were her luxuries, and her tea and bread-and-butter had been enjoyed three hours ago. "I declare I think that, after all, the leg is the better joint of the two." "Then why don't you have the two legs?"