to polish it daily.

She went to considerable trouble to explain this to John Musgrave, who listened with grave amazement to her voluble reasoning powers. Instead of commending her prudence he replaced the irons in their rightful position in the fender.

“For the future,” he said, as he straightened himself after the performance of this feat, “we will have them in their place.”

“They get dirty in the fender,” Eliza objected, “and it makes a lot of cleaning. Every one knows brass fire-irons didn’t ought to be used.”

“What purpose do they serve, then?” Mr Musgrave inquired.

“They are meant for show, sir,” answered Eliza, with a sniff that betokened contempt for his masculine ignorance.

Mr Musgrave looked at her with growing disapproval.

“To keep things for show is essentially vulgar,” he said. “Everything has a proper use, and should be applied to it.”

Having delivered himself of this rebuke he returned to the perusal of his newspaper. Eliza took up her tray, but, hearing the front door bell, put it down again and, with a protesting sniff, prepared to answer the ring.

John Musgrave seated himself at the table with its covers for one, its air of solid comfort and plenty, which, assertive though it might be, could not disguise a certain blank chilliness of aspect which the expanse of damask covering the long table insensibly conveyed; as did also the large, handsomely furnished room with its orderly row of unoccupied chairs which seemed mutely to protest against this disregard for their vocation. The apartment was essentially a family room, yet one man took his solitary meals there daily, had taken them there for many years: first as a small boy, with his parents and smaller sister, later as a man, who had seen these dear companions drop out from their accustomed places one by one, until now at forty he alone occupied the seat at the head of the table, and dwelt occasionally on those happier days when his meals had not been solitary.

Death had claimed his parents gently in the natural ordering of things. He had accustomed himself to their loss. But the loss of his sister was a more recent event, and less in accordance with nature, in John Musgrave’s opinion. She had left him six years ago, had married a college friend of his, and taken her bright companionship, and with it, it seemed to the 

 Prev. P 3/159 next