At eight o'clock to a minute Peggy brought in the tea-tray, and removed the claret-jug, which, though he had only once filled his glass, stood all that time by Mr. Scarsdale's side. Then he took his cup of tea from his daughter's hand without even looking at her, and went on with his reading. Comfort was not to be got out of anything in this house. Horace drank his standing--told his sister it did not rain now, and went off out of the room like a wind. And when Susan looked over her tea-tray to see her father's eyes fixed upon his book, and the door closed upon her brother, and herself compelled to sit formally there till Mr. Scarsdale, sipping it slowly and by intervals, had finished his second cup of tea--a certain forlorn sensation of solitude and discomfort moistened Susan's eyes, and brought an ache to her heart. Then her thoughts went back with a joyful rebound to the promised visitor of to-morrow--her mother's brother, an actual relation, whose love and kindness she had a claim on. She lost herself in wonder what like he would be, and how he would treat his sister's children. To-morrow would solve Susan's long and troubled problem--whether all men were like papa: to-morrow would give her a glimpse into that world of which she knew nothing. Nature was sceptical in Susan's heart: she could not believe that papa was the type and impersonation of man. Kindness, unknown and longed for, seemed coming to her in the person of that uncle. She returned to her patches, longing to run into the cheerful kitchen to Peggy, to ask all about the new-comer; but bound by the customary punctilio of the house to sit there silent and occupied opposite the reading-desk--a bondage which Susan had never felt more oppressive than on this particular night--while Mr. Scarsdale still turned the mechanical pages, and Horace roamed through the black moor and the falling rain, cursing his fate. CHAPTER IV.