"I am not hungry, mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea." Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but she was greatly in awe of him. Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come down," said Mr. Leslie with some anxiety. "Oh, sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me." The pigs stared up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. "Mother," said the young man, detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny--"mother, you should not let Oliver associate with those village boors. It is time to think of a profession for him." "Oh, he eats us out of house and home--such an appetite! But as to a profession--what is he fit for? He will never be a scholar." Randal nodded a moody assent; for, indeed, Oliver had been sent to Cambridge, and supported out of Randal's income from his official pay;--and Oliver had been plucked for his Little Go. "There is the army," said the elder brother--"a gentleman's calling. How handsome Juliet ought to be--but--I left money for masters--and she pronounces French like a chambermaid." "Yet she is fond of her book too. She's always reading, and good for nothing else." "Reading!--those trashy novels!" "So like you--you always come to scold, and make things unpleasant," said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are grown too fine for us, and I am sure we suffer affronts enough from others, not to want a little respect from our own children." "I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. "Pardon me. But who else has done so?"