"Cheese, Stephen?" she said in her peevish way, towards the end of the repast. "You know my digestion is such that it will not bear cheese. At least," she said, "you would have known it if you had had ambition enough to follow your father's profession." "Ah! I ought to have known better, dear," he said, smiling pleasantly; "but doctors starve in London, mother. There are too many as it is." "Yes, of course, of course," said the poor woman tearfully; "my advice is worthless, I suppose." "No, no, dear, it is not," said Mr Hallett, getting up and laying his hand upon that of the invalid. "Come, let me take your plate. We'll have the things away directly, and I'll read to you till tea-time, if Antony won't mind." "Is Linny going out this afternoon?" said Mrs Hallett querulously. "Yes, mamma, and I shall be late," said Linny, colouring, apparently with vexation, as she glanced at me, making me feel guilty, and the cause of her disappointment. "We won't keep you, Linny," exclaimed Hallett; "go and get ready. Antony, you will not mind, will you? My sister likes to go to church of an afternoon; it is nicer for her than the evening." "Oh no, I won't mind," I said eagerly. "All right, then; be off, Linny. Antony and I will soon clear away the pie--eh, Antony?" I laughed and coloured at this _double entendre_, which Mrs Hallett did not comprehend, for as Linny with a grateful look hurried out of the room, the invalid exclaimed fretfully: "I wish you would say _tart_, Stephen, my son. If you will persist in working as a mechanic, and wasting your time in fruitless schemes--" "Hush, mother!" said Mr Hallett, with an uneasy glance at me. "Yes, my son; but I cannot bear you to forget all our old genteel ways. We may be poor, but we can still be respectable." "Yes, yes; of course, dear," said Mr Hallett nastily, as he saw that his mother was about to shed tears. "Come, Antony, let's be waiters." I jumped up to assist him, just as Linny, looking very rosy and pretty in her bonnet and jacket, hurried out of a side room, and kissing her mother, and nodding to us, hastened downstairs. "Ah?" said Mrs Hallett, with another sigh, "we ought not to be reduced to that." "To what, dear?" said Mr Hallett, as he busily removed the dinner things. "Letting that young and innocent girl go about the streets alone without a protector, offering herself as a prey to every designing wretch who casts his eyes upon her fresh, fair face." "My dear mother," said Mr Hallett, laughing, "London is not quite such a sink of iniquity as you suppose, and you have tutored Linny too well for there to be any occasion for fear. There, come, lean back and rest till we have done, and then I will read you one of your favourites." Mrs Hallett allowed herself to be gently pressed back in her seat, and lay there still complaining that a son of hers should have to stoop, and also ask his visitor to stoop, to such a degrading toil.