Trixie was a handsome girl of about eighteen, with abundant auburn hair, which was never quite in good order, and pretty hands of which most girls would have been more careful; she had developed a limp taste for art of late, finding drawing outlines at an art school less irksome than assisting in the housekeeping at home. Uncle Solomon always alarmed her because she never knew what he would say next; but as it was a family rule to be civil to him, she made room for him with great apparent alacrity. 'And how are you all, boys and girls, eh?' asked Uncle Solomon, when he was comfortably seated; 'Mark, you've got fuller in the waist of late; you don't take 'alf enough exercise. Cuthbert, lad, you're looking very sallow under the eyes--smoking and late hours, _that's_ the way with all the young men nowadays! Why don't you talk to him, eh, Matthew? I should if he was a boy o' mine. Well, Martha, has any nice young man asked you to name a day yet?--he's a long time coming forward, Martha, that nice young man; why, let me see, Jane, she must be getting on now for--she was born in the year fifty-four, was it?--four it was; it was in the war time, I remember, and you wanted her christened Alma, but I said an uncommon name is all very well if she grows up good-looking, but if she's plain it only sounds ridiklous; so, very fortunately as things turn out, you had her christened Martha. There's nothing to bite your lips over, my dear; no one blames you for it, we can't be all born 'andsome. It's Trixie here who gets all the love-letters, isn't it, Trixie?--ah, I _thought_ I should see a blush if I looked! Who is it now, Trixie, and where do we meet him, and when is the wedding? Come, tell your old uncle.' 'Don't put such nonsense into the child's head, Solomon,' said his sister, in a slightly scandalised tone. 'That would be coals to Newcastle with a vengeance,' he chuckled; 'but you mustn't mind my going on--that's my way; if people don't like it I can't help it, but I always speak right out.' 'Which is the reason we love him,' came in a stage aside from Cuthbert, who took advantage of a slight deafness in one of his uncle's ears. 'Well, Mr. Schoolmaster,' said the latter, working round to Mark again, 'and how are _you_ gettin' on? If you'd worked harder at College and done me credit, you'd 'a' been a feller of your college, or a judge in an Indian court, by this time, instead of birching naughty little boys.' 'It's a detail,' said Mark; 'but I don't interfere in that department.' 'Well, you _are_ young to be trusted with a birch. I'm glad they look at things that way. If _you're_ satisfied with yourself, I suppose I ought to be, though I did look forward once to seeing a nephew of mine famous. You've '_ad_ all your fame at Cambridge, with your papers, and your poems, and your College skits--a nice snug little fame all to yourself.'