'This is partridge, isn't it?' asked Vernie. 'I like partridge. We always have nice dinners now--jellies, and creams, and wine that goes fizz; and we all have the same as pa. We didn't in France, you know,' explained the boy, unconscious of any reason for suppressing facts in the presence of the waiter. 'Mamma and I used to have any little bits--it didn't matter for us, you know--we could pinch. Mamma was used to it, and it was good for me, you know, because I'm often bilious--and it's better to go without rich things than to take Gregory's powder, isn't it?' 'Decidedly,' said Brian, who was not too old to remember that bugbear of the Edinburgh pharmacopæia. 'And now we have dessert every day,' continued Vernie; 'lovely dessert--almonds and raisins, and pears, and nuts, and things, just like Christmas Day. I thought that kind of dessert was only meant for Christmas Day. And we have men to wait upon us, dressed like clergymen, just like him,' added the child, pointing to the waiter. 'Oh, Vernie, it's so rude to point,' murmured Ida. 'Not for me; I can't be rude,' replied the boy, with conviction. 'I'm a baronet's son. I shall be a baronet myself some day. Mamma told me. I may do what I like.' 'No, pet, you must be a gentleman. If you were a king's son you would have to be that.' 'Then I wouldn't. What's the use of being rich if you can't do what you like?' demanded Vernie, who already began to have ideas, and who was as sharp for his age as the chicken which begins to catch flies directly its head is out of the shell. 'What's the good of being somebody if you have to behave just as well as if you were nobody?' said Brian. 'Little Vernon has the feudal idea strongly developed; no doubt an evolution from some long-departed ancestor, who lived in the days when there were different laws for the knight and the villain. Now, how are we going to amuse this young gentleman? I have leave to keep him till half-past seven, when we are all three to dine with Sir Reginald and Lady Palliser at the Grosvenor.' Vernie, who was half way through his second glass of sparkling moselle, burst out laughing. 'Lady Palliser!' he exclaimed, 'it's so funny to hear mamma called Lady: because she isn't a lady, you know. She used to run about the house all day with her sleeves tucked up, and she used to cook; and Jane, our English servant, said no lady ever did that. Jane and mamma used to quarrel,' explained the infant, calmly. 'Jane knew very little about what makes a lady or not a lady,' said Ida, grieved to find a want of elevation in the little man's ideas. 'Some of the truest and noblest ladies have worked hard all their lives.'