She stood still for a moment. Then, catching the attentive round eye of Gustavus, who was waiting by the hall door, she shrugged her shoulders and walked towards the staircase. “It’s very hard lines,” she murmured as she began to ascend: “all the questions you wanted to ask are being answered. You know I’m Miss Minerva already. In another minute you’ll know who the old gentleman was that--” The Prophet could tell from the expression of her straight, slightly Scottish, back that she was pouting as she entered the drawing-room where Mrs. Merillia was having tea with--somebody. CHAPTER VI THE OLD ASTRONOMER DISCOURSETH OF THE STARS Never before had the Prophet felt so alive with curiosity as he did when he followed Lady Enid into Mrs. Merillia’s presence, for he knew that he was about to see the venerable victim of the young librarian’s indignant chivalry, the “old gent” who had come to intimate terms with Jellybrand’s bookcase, and who had kicked and knocked at least a pint of paint off Jellybrand’s door. His eyes were large and staring as he glanced swiftly from his grandmother’s sofa to the huge telescope, under whose very shadow was seated no less a personage than Sir Tiglath Butt, holding a cup of tea on one hand and a large-sized muffin in the other. No wonder the Prophet jumped. No wonder Mrs. Merillia cried out, in her pretty, clear voice,-- “Take care of Beau, Hennessey! You’re treading on him.” The dachshund’s pathetic shriek of outrage made the rafters ring. Mrs. Merillia put her mittens to her ears, and Sir Tiglath dropped his muffin into a jar of pot-pourri. “I beg your pardon,” said the Prophet, earnestly. “Sir Tiglath--this is indeed a sur--a pleasure.” Lady Enid was being embraced by Mrs. Merillia. The Prophet extended his hand to the astronomer, who, however, turned his back to the company and, diving one of his enormous hands into the pot-pourri jar, began to rummage violently for his vanished meal. “What is it?” said the Prophet, who had not seen the muffin go. “Can I help you?” Still presenting his huge back and the purple nape of his fat neck to the assemblage, the astronomer, after trying in vain to extract the lost dainty in a legitimate manner, turned the jar upside down, and poured the rose-leaves and the muffin in a heterogeneous libation upon the Chippendale table. After a close examination of it he turned around, holding up the food to whose buttered surface several leaves adhered in a disordered, but determined, manner.