eyes that surprised you at times by a sudden humorous twinkle. He had given up contending with his wife long ago, and consoled himself for his abdication by sly internal comments on her proceedings. His remarks stung her occasionally, and she never quite ruled him, though he was not man enough to rule her.

Mrs. Russelthorpe and her brother waxed hot over politics; and Meg, understanding about one remark in ten, was yet unwittingly charmed by the flow of her father's sentences and the tone of his musical voice.

The taste of sherry always brought back a remembrance of him, with his chin swathed in the stiff stock of those days, his face aglow with enthusiasm, his blue eyes kindling as he spoke.

He was a very gallant gentleman, to whom all women were good and pure and beautiful; it was no wonder they liked him.

Mr. Deane was the one Radical in a Tory family at a time when party spirit ran high, and his sister was genuinely shocked at the tendencies he displayed, and combated them with excellent force and some wit. Mrs. Russelthorpe enjoyed an argument, but her brother was too keenly interested to fence well.

"My dear Augusta, it's easy to sit at an over-heaped table, and preach about the insubordination of the starving," he cried. "We've done that long enough. No wonder Lazarus outside becomes impatient!"

"Is Lazarus just outside?" asked Meg, raising her head, which was nestled against his breast.

"Ay, God knows he is!" said her father. "And this bitter winter is nipping his toes and freezing his marrow, Meg, so that he threatens to come in, and take his share of the good things. You see, sis," he added apologetically, "there are two sides to every question."

Uncle Russelthorpe emitted a sudden unmusical chuckle.

"Very true, Charles," he said. "But you are not the man to see both."

Here Meg began to cry. "I'm frightened of Lazarus," she gasped. "I don't want him to come in!" and her father laughed at and comforted her, and finally bore her up to bed, being rather flattered at her devotion to him, as well as touched at parting with his motherless children, whose hearts he had quite won during the long coach journey to London.

He saw very little of his girls as a rule, he had so many other things to think of (he was a great patron of 

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