Mrs. Somerton’s lip curled with a pitying, patronising expression, that put her husband into a towering passion; a most unusual circumstance. “Damn it!” he exclaimed, rising from his seat, “a Somerton is as independent a man any day; there was never one of the race that didn’t always pay twenty shillings in the pound, and but wouldn’t fell a lord if he spoke a light word of any of their women: and, by heaven, I consider myself as good a man as any Hammerton, dead or living.” “There, there, Luke; now don’t get into a passion,” said Mrs. Somerton, trying to speak soothingly, and like an injured woman, who had not given the slightest cause for passion to anybody in all her life. “What’s the meaning of all this, Sarah? There’s something at the bottom of it.” “Only a friendly gossip between man and wife; but that’s such a novelty in this house, is it not?” “I have had enough experience to tell me that a friendly gossip like this is not meant for nothing, Sarah,” said Luke, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and pacing about the room. Whether there was anything “at the bottom of it,” or not, did not further transpire at that moment, by reason of the Hon. Lionel Hammerton himself dismounting from his horse at the gate beyond the garden, and walking up to Mr. Somerton’s door. CHAPTER IV. THE METER IRON WORKS COMPANY. The offices of Mr. Tallant and the Meter Works were at Westminster, in a magnificent newly erected block of buildings not far from the Houses of Parliament. They comprised the whole suite of apartments on the ground-floor, with a board-room above. On the heavy swinging mahogany doors at the entrance were two thick brass plates, on one of which was engraven “Meter Iron Works Company,” and on the other “Christopher Tallant.” The establishment was fitted up in the best possible style, with mahogany desks; the counting-house was very much like a bank, the whole of the monetary business of the great company, as well as that of Mr. Tallant, being conducted in town. Behind the counting-house was Mr. Christopher Tallant’s room, and that of his son Richard. Mr. Tallant’s room was plainly but well furnished, and was only occupied once a week; but Mr. Richard’s room was fitted up in the highest style of office magnificence, like a gentleman’s library. There was a thick velvet-pile carpet upon the floor, a massive carved mahogany table in the centre of the room; several ponderous chairs with morocco seats; a quaint arm-chair stood before a writing-pad near the table. Where there were no book-shelves there were pictures of engines, and iron bridges, and curious girders, and wheels, in ponderous frames; and thick cloth curtains draped the two windows which looked into the street.