He had taken advantage of Lydia’s momentary absence to utter this pathetic speech, and as the red Garibaldi was not there to mar by force of contrast the Colonel’s paternal platitudes, he got through his toast swimmingly. In another moment, and before Honor’s hand, which had been lovingly extended to meet her father’s, could be withdrawn, the parlour-maid, in whose roguish black eyes the “first-floor front” was certainly no hero, had bounced back into the room, bearing before her a large specimen of that economical and succulent dish known to housekeepers as a juicy leg of mutton. Nothing overcome at the sight of this delicacy, Mrs. Norcott pressed a slice, cut with the gravy in, on Honor’s acceptance. “What, not a mouthful? Dear me now, how sorry I am! Is there nothing we could tempt you with? It’s because the mutton’s raw, perhaps, that your stomach turns a little at it. Lydia, can you get nothing from the larder for Mrs. John Beacham? That knuckle of ham, now--” Miss Lydia grinned broadly. “You’ll never see that there mouthful of ’am again, ’m,” she said pertly, and after the fashion of one accustomed to speak her mind. “The Kunnle he ate _that_ for his breakfast this morning afore he went out;” and having so said, she went on briskly with the important duties of her calling. To Honor, accustomed as she was to “the land flowing with milk and honey” of the old farm-house at Updown Paddocks, the state of the Stanwick-street larder appeared a most deplorable affair indeed. As for her father--her high-bred, distinguished-looking father, with his delicate aristocratic hands, his dainty golden sleeve-buttons, and, in her opinion, his warm paternal heart--she could hardly refrain from tears as she looked upon his futile efforts to eat the nauseous food that was set before him. She had not been reared, as we know, in the school of over-refinement, and to do violence to her own feelings in order to spare the self-love of another was one of the consequences on an advanced state of civilisation which had not, as yet, made itself felt in the somewhat _arrière_ parish of Switcham. To feign an appetite if she had it not was not therefore amongst the small deceptions which Mrs. Beacham felt called upon to practise, and for that reason the poor girl rose dinnerless, or, as she would in her ignorance have called it, supperless, from that untempting board. No sooner had the energetic Lydia retired, closing the door upon all (save its unwelcome perfume) that remained of that highly-unsatisfactory repast, than Colonel Norcott, taking his hat from a side table, announced his intention of going out.