"Not a doubt of it!" said the lawyer, "and no doubt 'we all' like Verty! Come, you foolish children, don't be bothering me with your nonsense. And you, Mr. Verty--you need'nt be so foolish as to consider everything I say so harsh as you seem to. You'll go next and tell somebody that old Rushton is an ill-natured huncks, without conscience or proper feeling; that he grumbled with you for stopping a moment to greet your friends. If you say any such thing," added Mr. Rushton, scowling at the young man, "you will be guilty of as base a slander--yes, sir! as base a slander, sir!--as imagination could invent!" And with a growl, the speaker turned from Verty, and said, roughly, to Redbud: "Where's your father?"' "Here I am," said the bluff and good-humored voice of the Squire, from the door; "you are early--much obliged to you." And the Squire and lawyer shook hands. Mr. Rushton's hand fell coldly to his side, and regarding the Squire for a moment with what seemed an expression of contemptuous anger, he said, frowning, until his shaggy, grey eye-brows met together almost: "Early! I suppose I am to take up the whole forenoon--the most valuable part of the day--jogging over the country to examine title-deeds and accounts? Humph! if you expect anything of the sort, you are mistaken. No, sir! I started from Winchester at day-break, without my breakfast, and here I am." The jovial Squire laughed, and turning from Verty, with whom he had shaken hands, said to the lawyer: "Breakfast?--is it possible? Well, Rushton, for once I will be magnanimous--magnificent, generous and liberal--" "What!" growled the lawyer. "You shall have some breakfast here!" finished the Squire, laughing heartily; and the merry old fellow caught Miss Redbud up from the porch, deposited a matutinal salute upon her lips, and kicking at old Caesar as he passed, by way of friendly greeting, led the way into the breakfast room. Verty made a movement to depart, inasmuch as he had breakfasted; but the vigilant eye of the lawyer detected this suspicious manoeuvre; and the young man found himself suddenly commanded to remain, by the formula "Wait!" uttered with a growl which might have done honor to a lion. Verty was not displeased at this interference with his movements, and, obedient to a sign, followed the lawyer into the breakfast-room. Everything was delightfully comfortable and cheerful there. And ere long, at the head of the table sat Miss Lavinia, silent and dignified; at the foot, the Squire, rubbing his hands, heaping plates with the savory broil before him, and talking with his mouth full; at the sides, Mr. Rushton, Redbud and Verty, who sedulously suppressed the fact that he had already breakfasted, for obvious reasons, doubtless quite plain to the reader.