'I want Jack to come and see me, and sit with me,' said the boy; 'he could come to tea couldn't he, mother? You wouldn't mind, would you?' 'My dear, he is not a proper person for you to associate with,' replied Lady Palliser. 'You oughtn't to bemean yourself by associating with your inferiors.' 'Bemean fiddlesticks!' cried Vernie; 'I don't believe there is such a word. Jack is the cleverest man I know--cleverer than Mr. Jardine, and that's saying a great deal.' Vainly did the widow endeavour to awaken her son's mind to the great gulf which divides a baronet from a hawker--a gulf not to be bridged over by the genius of a Dalton or a Whewell--and to those nice distinctions which obtain between a casual out-of-door intercourse with a man of this class, and a deliberate invitation to tea. 'When I'm well enough to go out I can go to him,' answered Vernon, doggedly; 'but now I'm ill he must come to me; and it's very unkind of you not to let him come. Blow his station in life! If he was a duke I shouldn't want him.' 'I can't think what you can want with this low person, when Ida and I are always doing everything to amuse you,' moaned Lady Palliser. 'Ida's a darling, and you too, mother,' said the boy, putting his thin little arms round his mother's neck. He was now just able to move those poor arms, which had been so racked with pain a little while ago. 'But I get tired of everything--Shakespeare, Dickens, even. It's so long to stay in bed; and I think Jack would amuse me more than anyone, if you'd let him come.' 'He shall come, darling. Is there anything I could refuse you?' said the mother, eagerly, moved by the sight of tears in Vernon's innocent blue eyes. 'Ask him to come to tea this afternoon.' 'Yes, love; I'll go and see about it this minute.' Lady Palliser went in quest of Ida, who was sitting in Brian's study reading, while her husband wrote, or made believe to write, at a table in the window piled with books of reference, which he consulted every now and then, lolling back in his chair and reading listlessly--altogether a mere show and pretence of study, never likely to result in anything--a weary dawdling away of the long summer morning. To Ida, Lady Palliser explained her difficulty. A note of some kind must be written to this Cheap Jack; and the little woman did not know how to word that note. 'If I say, "Lady Palliser presents her compliments to Mr. Cheap Jack, and requests the pleasure of his company," it seems like patting myself on a level with him, don't you know. I wish you'd write for me, Ida.' 'Willingly, dear mother; but I'm afraid the man won't come. He is such a very rough diamond.' 'Oh! but surely he will be gratified at an invitation to tea!' 'I'm afraid not. But I'll write at once. Anything to please Vernon.' Ida wrote as follows:--