"William!" cries my father in a voice of thunder, "go to your room." And William does as he is bid. The brown gravy-soup has not yet been removed; and, Billy being our youngest, and consequently the last helped, more than half his allowance of that nutritious fluid still remains upon his plate. His going _now_ means his being dinnerless for this day at least. A lump rises in my throat and my face flushes. For the moment I feel that I have Dora and papa and my own soup, and, leaning back in my chair, suffer it to follow Billy's. I am almost on the verge of tears, when, happening to glance upwards, my eyes fall upon Roly's expressive countenance. In his right eye is screwed the most enormous butcher's penny I ever beheld; his nose is drawn altogether to one side in a frantic endeavor to maintain it in its precarious position; his mouth likewise; his left orb is firmly fixed upon our paternal parent. I instantly become hysterical. An awful fear that I am going to break into wild laughter seizes hold of me. I grow cold with fright, and actually gasp with fear, when mother (who always knows by instinct, dear heart, when we are on the brink of disgrace) brings her foot heavily down on mine, and happily turns the current of my thoughts. She checks me just in time; I wince, and, withdrawing my fascinated gaze from Roly's penny, fix my attention on the tablecloth, while she turns an agonizing look of entreaty upon her eldest hope; but, as his only available eye is warily bent on papa, nothing comes of it. There is an unaccountable delay after the soup has been removed. Can Billy have been adding to his evil doing by any fresh misconduct? This idea is paramount with me as I sit staring at the house-linen, though all the time in my brain I see Roland's copper regarding me with gloomy attention. The silence is becoming positively awful, when papa suddenly raises his head from the contemplation of his nails, and Roland sweeping the penny from his eye with graceful ease, utters a languid sigh, and says, mildly:--- "Shall we say Grace?" "What is the meaning of this delay?" demands papa, exploding for the second time. "Are we to sit here all night? Tell cook if this occurs again she can leave. Three-quarters of an hour between soup and fish is more than I will put up with. If there is no more dinner, let her say so." "Perhaps Mrs. Tully is indisposed," says Roly, politely, addressing James. "If so, we ought to make allowances for her." Mrs. Tully's admiration for "Old Tom" being a well-known fact to every one in the house except papa. "Be silent, Roland; I will have no interference where my servants are concerned," declares papa; and exit James, with his hand to his mouth, to return presently with a very red face and the roast mutton. "Where's the fish?" asks papa, in a terrific tone. "It didn't arrive in time, sir."