"I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way
when she was here," said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace
and sighed.

Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell
upon other topics.

Mrs. Roger Morton's charge against Sidney was, alas! too true. He had
acquired, under that roof, a terrible habit of telling stories. He had
never incurred that vice with his mother, because then and there he had
nothing to fear; now, he had everything to fear;--the grim aunt--even the
quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle--the apprentices--the strange servants--
and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the
boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a
coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I
vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware of the
man who has been roughly treated as a child.

The day after the conference just narrated, Mr. Morton, who was subject
to erysipelas, had taken a little cooling medicine. He breakfasted,
therefore, later than usual--after the rest of the family; and at this
meal _pour lui soulager_ he ordered the luxury of a muffin. Now it so
chanced that he had only finished half the muffin, and drunk one cup of
tea, when he was called into the shop by a customer of great importance--
a prosy old lady, who always gave her orders with remarkable precision,
and who valued herself on a character for affability, which she
maintained by never buying a penny riband without asking the shopman how
all his family were, and talking news about every other family in the
place. At the time Mr. Morton left the parlour, Sidney and Master Tom
were therein, seated on two stools, and casting up division sums on their