Lingering a moment in this sacred inclosure to readjust the tablecloth, Mrs. Morpher passed into the dining-room, where the correct Clytie presided at the supper-table, at which the rest of the family were seated. Mrs. Morpher’s quick eyes caught the spectacle of M’liss with her chin resting on her hands, and her elbows on the table, sardonically surveying the model of deportment opposite to her. “M’liss!” “Well?” “Where’s your elbows?” “Here’s one and there’s the other,” said M’liss quietly, indicating their respective localities by smartly tapping them with the palm of her hand. “Take them off the table, instantly, you bold, forward girl—and you, sir, quit that giggling and eat your supper, if you don’t want to be put to bed without it!” added Mrs. Morpher to Lycurgus, to whom M’liss’s answer had afforded boundless satisfaction. “You’re getting to be just as bad as her, and mercy knows you never were a seraphim!” “What’s a seraphim, mother, and what do they do?” asked Lycurgus, with growing interest. “They don’t ask questions when they should be eating their supper, and thankful for it,” interposed Clytie, authoritatively, as one to whom the genteel attributes and social habits of the seraphim had been a privileged revelation. “But, mother”— “Hush—and don’t be a heathen—run and see who is coming in,” said Mrs. Morpher, as the sound of footsteps was heard in the passage. The door opened and McSnagley entered. “Why, bless my soul—how do you do?” said Mrs. Morpher, with genteel astonishment. “Quite a stranger, I declare.” This was a polite fiction. M’liss knew the fact to be that Mrs. Morpher was reputed to “set the best table” in Smith’s Pocket, and McSnagley always called in on Sunday evenings at supper to discuss the current gossip, and “nag” M’liss with selected texts. The verbal McSnagley as usual couldn’t stop a moment—and just dropped in “in passin’.” The actual McSnagley deposited his hat in the corner, and placed himself, in the flesh, on a chair by the table. “And how’s Brother James, and the fammerly?” “They’re all well—except ‘Risty;’ he’s off again,—as if my life weren’t already pestered out with one child,” and Mrs. Morpher glanced significantly at M’liss. “Ah, well, we all of us have our trials,” said McSnagley. “I’ve been ailin’ again. That ager must be in my bones still. I’ve been rather onsettled myself to-day.” There was the appearance of truth in this statement; Mr. McSnagley’s voice had a hollow resonant sound, and his eyes were nervous and fidgety. He had an odd trick, too, of occasionally stopping in the middle of a sentence, and listening as though he heard some distant sound. These things, which Mrs. Morpher recalled afterwards, did not, in the undercurrent of uneasiness about Aristides which she felt the whole of that evening, so particularly attract her notice. “I know something,” said Lycurgus, during one of these pauses, from the retirement of his corner. “If you dare to—Kerg!” said M’liss.