‘I am not fine,’ denied Catherine; then, returning to the charge with a gleam of animation, ‘I should like to know what Oliver Constable is going to lecture upon.’ ‘I should say on the model trader, whose biography has been so often written; the poor boy who finds a rusty horse-shoe, sells it for old iron, and dies the possessor of the most perfect racing stud in the kingdom.’ ‘That would not suit his views,’ objected Catherine. ‘I dare say I have spoilt the example,’ said Mrs. Hilliard innocently; ‘and when one thinks of it, Oliver would have the boy gathering horse-shoes till he was grey-headed, though in the interval he should find time and opportunity to learn to read, clean himself, and use a knife and fork. Of course he must take to moralising on the first artificer in brass and iron, and find illustrations of the work of his successors in the sword, the plough, and the pen—steel pens would come in so nicely to finish the peroration. I should not be surprised, after all, if the lecturer were to let the model trader alone—I am sure he deserves a little rest—and give us the natural history of a bit of bread, beginning with seed corn, and ending with—it ought not to be a slice of loaf, a macaroon is a much higher and more artistic product of the oven,’ said Mrs. Hilliard gravely, while she inspected carefully through her eye-glass a plate of macaroons on the sideboard. ‘It will be a revelation to Fan, who is said to live under the impression that loaves grow somewhere, out of sight, behind the shop, doubtless, as the bread-fruit tree flourishes in the South Sea Islands. You know she is too good a Christian to fail to be aware that manna only fell from the skies for a time, to the Jews, when Moses was leading them through the wilderness.’ ‘I don’t need such enlightenment, and I shall not go,’ said Catherine. ‘What, not to hear Oliver exalt his vocation, and establish satisfactorily that, without bread, we should all be cannibals again soon, I suppose; for what with pleuro-pneumonia and _rinderpest_, there would not be nearly enough animals left for us, and of those which were left, we could not depend upon their wholesomeness and appetising attractions. I should not like to try dogs and rats and mice—not if I went to China to acquire the proper taste.’ ‘I don’t care for exaggeration,’ said Catherine, with her customary candour. ‘Neither in sense, nor in nonsense, which means neither in the master baker, nor in me. Well, I did hear Oliver was going to be quite commonplace, and serve up some poet.’ ‘Which?’ enquired Catherine, with more curiosity than she had yet displayed.