"No, not really--most assuredly!" he answers, laughing lazily. "On the contrary, I am nearer coinciding with the opinion of the Jewish gentleman, who said it would be a very pleasant world if there were no _shummers_ and no _shabbaths_." It is hardly worth Miss Craven's while, you will perceive, to lose her place twice, and get rated by her old employer, for the sake of hearing brilliant questions and answers of the above description. Though her jealous eyes are fixed upon the _Saturday's_ columns, they see, none the less clearly, those two figures reclined upon the distant sofa. Once she sees St. John raise himself, and, stooping forward over his companion, speak with more animation than he has yet used. If she break the drum of her ear in the attempt, she _must_ catch the drift of that remark--some delicious tender nothing, no doubt. She succeeds: "By-the-bye, Conny, how was the lump on your pony's leg when you left home?" As another and another article follow the first, Esther's cough becomes increasingly troublesome: her throat aches with the effort of reading: her voice at each paragraph waxes huskier and huskier. For several minutes past Gerard's answers to Miss Blessington's questions have been growing ever more wildly random; suddenly he leaves the sofa, and comes over to Mr. Blessington's armchair. "Will you let _me_ read to you a bit?" he asks, in that loud unmodulated roar that people unused to the deaf think the only method of making them hear. "Eh! what does he say?" inquires the old gentleman, sharply, lifting his head, and peering blindly up in the direction whence the voice came. "I asked whether you would let _me_ read to you, for a change, instead of Miss Craven?" "No--thanks, no," replies the old man, ungraciously. "Much obliged to you, but I cannot hear a word you say; you run all your words into one another." "Do I? I daresay," rejoins Gerard, good-humouredly; "but have you ever heard me read? I think not." "Begging your pardon, I have, though; I heard you read prayers here one Sunday evening." "And I am afraid my mode of conducting divine worship has not left a pleasant impression," says the young man, laughing. "Well, but I promise to read as slow as ever you choose, and to count four at every full-stop." "No--no," cries the old man, obstinately. "Get away with you, my dear boy! you are interrupting us. No offence, but we are very happy without you--aren't we, Miss Esther? You attend to your own business; we don't offer to help you in that--do we--eh, my dear?" Baffled and vexed, St. John stands silent; and as he so stands, the young girl lifts her great meek eyes, dumbly grateful, to his. He has forbidden her to speak to him, but he cannot lay an embargo upon the gentle messages sent from those sorrowful shining orbs. His own meet them for an instant; then he turns away with a half-shudder.