'Quite correct,' said Mr. Crisparkle. 'D-r-double o-d.'

'Does he--or did he--read with you, sir?'

'Never, Mr. Neville. He comes here visiting his relation, Mr.
Jasper.'

'Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir?'

('Now, why should he ask that, with sudden superciliousness?'
thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud, what he knew of
the little story of their betrothal.

'O! THAT'S it, is it?' said the young man. 'I understand his air
of proprietorship now!'

This was said so evidently to himself, or to anybody rather than
Mr. Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt as if to notice
it would be almost tantamount to noticing a passage in a letter
which he had read by chance over the writer's shoulder. A moment
afterwards they re-entered the house.

Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his drawing-
room, and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while she sang. It was a
consequence of his playing the accompaniment without notes, and of
her being a heedless little creature, very apt to go wrong, that he
followed her lips most attentively, with his eyes as well as hands;
carefully and softly hinting the key-note from time to time.
Standing with an arm drawn round her, but with a face far more