My lady did not change her dress for dinner. The odds and ends of what we are pleased to call full dinner-dress did not seem to be appreciated at the Red Court. Yesterday Richard and Isaac had sat down in their velveteen clothes. A moment before dinner Mr. Thornycroft came into the drawing-room, and said his sons had brought in two or three friends. My lady, meeting them in the hall, stared at their appearance and number. "What is it? who are they?" she whispered to Mary Anne. "Oh, it is only one of their impromptu dinner parties," carelessly replied Mary Anne. "I guessed they were thinking of it by their delaying the dinner. They have supper parties instead sometimes." My lady thought she had never seen so rough a dinner party in her life, in the matter of dress. Richard and Isaac wore thin light clothes, loose and easy; the strangers' costume was, to say the least of it, varied. Old Connaught, temporarily abroad again, was wrapped in a suit of grey flannel; the superintendent of the coastguard wore brown; and Captain Copp had arrived in a pea-jacket. Mary Anne shook hands with them all; Miss Derode chattered; and Mr. Thornycroft introduced the superintendent by name to his wife--Mr. Dangerfield. "Only six today," whispered Mary Anne to her stepmother. "Sometimes they have a dozen." Quite enough for the fare provided. Before Mr. Thornycroft began to help the soles, he looked everywhere for a second dish--on the table, on the sideboard, on the dumb waiter. "There's more fish than this, Sinnett?" he exclaimed, hastily. "No, sir. That's all." Mr. Thornycroft stared his servants severally in the face, as if the fault were theirs. Three of them were in waiting: Sinnett, a maid, and Hyde. He then applied himself to the helping of the fish, and, by dint of contrivance, managed to make it go round. Well and good. Some ribs of beef came on next, fortunately a large piece. Mr. Thornycroft let it get cold before him; he could not imagine what the hindrance meant. Presently it struck him that the three servants stood in their places waiting for the meat to be served. The guests waited. "Where are the other things, Hyde?" "There's only that, sir." The justice looked up the table and down the table; never in his whole life had he felt ashamed of his hospitality until now. But by this time the curious aspect of affairs had penetrated to Richard. "Is this all you have to give us for dinner?" he asked of Sinnett, in his deep, stern tones; and he did not think it necessary to lower his voice. "Yes, sir." "_This!_ That piece of beef?" "There's nothing else, sir." "By whose management?--by whose fault? Speak, woman." "My lady gave the orders, sir." Richard turned his dark face on my lady, as if demanding whether Sinnett was not telling a lie; and Mr. Thornycroft began to cut the beef as fast as he could cut it.