Pupkin placed a moderator-lamp on the centre table, and lighted candles on the cheffonier and mantelpiece. He brought the tea-equipage, and attended on his mistress while she poured out the tea. Mr. O'Boyneville relapsed into profound meditation, as it was his habit to do while taking tea. He was thinking fondly of the red bag which was waiting for him on the study-table below, and wishing that his brother luminary might be inspired to take his departure. But that gentleman was pleased to snatch an opportunity of making himself agreeable to his learned friend's aristocratic and elegant young wife, and was relating a facetious but strictly correct trial, which had convulsed one of the law-courts during the late term. Poor Cecil smiled faintly at the feeble witticisms, and tried her uttermost to be civil to her husband's guest. But she was very glad when Mr. O'Boyneville, after a protracted fit of staring, which was the next thing to epilepsy, started suddenly from his seat, and exclaimed: "And now, my dear Sleghammer, I'll wish you good-night. I've got some very important papers to look through before I go to bed, and----" "My dear Boyneville, don't use the least ceremony. I know how you work! and, bless my soul! it's past ten o'clock. But really I had spent such a delightful evening, that, upon my word, I----" murmured Mr. Sleghammer, looking at Lady Cecil, whose society he had enjoyed for about twenty minutes since dinner. When Mr. O'Boyneville's guest had walked away in the summer night, and when Mr. O'Boyneville had gone to his nightly labours, the dowager embraced her niece very affectionately before taking her departure in the phantom chariot, which had been prowling slowly to and fro in the square for the last half hour, to the admiration of the boys of the district who associated the equipage vaguely with the Lord Mayor. "What a dear creature your husband is!" cried the dowager; "and how entertaining it is to hear all the little secrets of the law-courts! You ought to be happy, Cecil; you ought indeed. But you girls don't know what real happiness is. And yet _you_ ought to know the value of a good home, and a generous husband; for you have known what it is to be poor." "Do you think that I do not appreciate my husband's goodness?" said Cecil earnestly. "Indeed--indeed, auntie----" "Oh yes," answered the dowager promptly, "you appreciate his goodness perhaps; but you don't appreciate _him_. You just tolerate him because he is good and kind to you, and works like a galley-slave to insure your welfare in the future; but if he could read 'Victor Hugo' like a play-actor, and make an idiot of himself about Mendelssohn, you'd adore him."