They went along a little passage, to the left of which was the ‘parlour,’ arranged in the approved style of such parlours, with a brilliant, large-patterned carpet in red, yellow, and blue; bright green merino curtains, a ‘drawing-room suite’ in rosewood and crimson rep, a pink cloth upon the centre table, upon which were negligently arranged albums, Sunday books, paper mats, and a glass shade, under which reposed waxen apples and grapes of a corpulent description. On the mantelpiece, two green glass vases, and a china greyhound of an unknown variety, more frilled paper mats, and little piles of spar and crystal. On the walls, photographs and a rich collection of framed funeral cards, together with the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the whole establishment--a work of art which Mary regarded with feelings little short of veneration--‘Joseph sold by his Brethren,’ executed in Berlin wools, the merchants all squinting frightfully, and Joseph with a salmon-coloured back and a decidedly ruddy countenance, though one not of such remarkable beauty as quite to account for his subsequent adventures. Past the door leading into this epitome of art and beauty went these young people, into the kitchen, which was, of course, the general living-room of the family. Upon a couch beneath the window, with the crinkling of the cinders and the ticking of the clock for his only companions, lay the failure of his family--a cripple lad of eighteen. ‘Well, Ned, lad, how dost find thyself?’ asked Myles, going in. ‘I find myself as usual--wishing I was dead,’ was the encouraging reply, as the lad turned a pale and sallow face, not without considerable beauty of feature, but stamped with a look of ill-health, pain, and something deeper and more sorrowful than either, towards the strong, handsome brother who stooped over him. ‘Nay, come! Not quite so bad as that,’ said Myles, smoothing Edmund’s hair from his hot forehead, and seating himself beside the couch. He looked into his cripple brother’s eyes with a glance so full of life, and hope, and strong, protecting kindness, and withal so contagious a smile, that an answering, if a reluctant one, was wrung from the lad’s dull eyes and down-drawn mouth. ‘I’m that thirsty!’ he said. ‘Molly, do get the tea ready.’ ‘I’m shappin’’ (shaping) ‘to’t now, lad,’ she returned, hanging up her cotton kerchief and poking the fire to settle the kettle upon it. ‘And you read a bit, Myles, wilta?’ pursued Edmund. ‘Mother won’t be home for half an hour, and I could like to know how yon Lady Angiolina got on at the castle.’ Myles took up a book from a table and began to read aloud: ‘“As the groom of the chambers announced the Lady Angiolina Fitzmaurice, every eye turned towards her. She advanced with the step of a queen. Her trailing robe of black velvet set off her superb beauty to the utmost advantage,”’ and so forth.