“Tell us what’s the right letter,” said George to her. “I!” exclaimed Lettie, “who can look into the seeds of Time?” “Those who have set ’em and watched ’em sprout,” said I. She flung the peel into the fire, laughing a short laugh, and went on with her work. Mrs. Saxton leaned over to her daughter and said softly, so that he should not hear, that George was pulling the flesh out of the raisins. “George!” said Emily sharply, “You’re leaving nothing but the husks.” He too was angry: “‘And he would fain fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.’” he said quietly, taking a handful of the fruit he had picked and putting some in his mouth. Emily snatched away the basin: “It is too bad!” she said. “Here,” said Lettie, handing him an apple she had peeled. “You may have an apple, greedy boy.” He took it and looked at it. Then a malicious smile twinkled round his eyes,—as he said: “If you give me the apple, to whom will you give the peel?” “The swine,” she said, as if she only understood his first reference to the Prodigal Son. He put the apple on the table. “Don’t you want it?” she said. “Mother,” he said comically, as if jesting. “She is offering me the apple like Eve.” Like a flash, she snatched the apple from him, hid it in her skirts a moment, looking at him with dilated eyes, and then she flung it at the fire. She missed, and the father leaned forward and picked it off the hob, saying: “The pigs may as well have it. You were slow, George—when a lady offers you a thing you don’t have to make mouths.” “A ce qu’il parait,” she cried, laughing now at her ease, boisterously: “Is she making love, Emily?” asked the father, laughing suggestively. “She says it too fast for me,” said Emily. George was leaning back in his chair, his hands in his breeches pockets. “We shall have to finish his raisins after all, Emily,” said Lettie brightly. “Look what a lazy animal he is.” “He likes his comfort,” said Emily, with irony. “The picture of content—solid, healthy, easy-moving content——” continued Lettie. As he sat thus, with his head thrown back against the end of the ingle-seat, coatless, his red neck seen in repose, he did indeed look remarkably comfortable. “I shall never fret my fat away,” he said stolidly. “No—you and I—we are not like Cyril. We do not burn our bodies in our heads—or our hearts, do we?” “We have it in common,” said he, looking at her indifferently beneath his lashes, as his head was tilted back.