intensely enjoyed, and was between tears and bravos at the charge of
the Six Hundred, when the two brothers entered, and stood silently
listening.

That return brought a change. Aubrey was indeed open and bright,
bursting out with eager communications the moment the song ceased,
then turning round with winning apologies, and hopes that he was not
interrupting; but Tom looked so stiff and polite as to chill every
one, and Averil began to talk of the children's bed-time.

The Doctor and Aubrey pressed for another song so earnestly that she
consented; but the spirit and animation were gone, and she had no
sooner finished than she made a decided move to depart, and Dr. May
accompanied the party home.

'Is my father going to put that fellow to bed?' said Tom, yawning, as
if injured by the delay of bed-time thus occasioned.

'Your courtesy does not equal his,' said Ethel.

'Nor ever will,' said Tom.

'Never,' said Ethel, so emphatically that she nettled him into
adding,

'He is a standing warning against spoiling one's patients. I
wouldn't have them and their whole tag-rag and bobtail about my house
for something!'

'O, Tom, for shame!' cried Mary, bursting out in the wrath he had