first-floor landing, peeping over the balustrade to see who they were.
"It's Mr. Kiss," whispered Fanny.
"And a strange gentleman," whispered Bob.
"Uncle Leth said," whispered Phœbe, "'the celebrated author.' I wonder if he's joking?"
"They are going to stop to tea," whispered Fanny, "and mother has sent them into the drawing-room while she gets out the best tea-things. We must go and help her."
Aunt Leth, from the passage below, coughed aloud, having detected the presence of the young people, and there was an instant scuttling away above, and a sound of smothered laughter. To Aunt Leth's relief, this was not noticed by her visitors, who made their way into the drawing-room. It was called so more from habit than because it was a room set apart for holiday and grand occasions; there was no such room in the house of the Lethbridges, which was a home in the truest sense of the word.
Aunt Leth was deeply impressed by the circumstance of having a celebrated author in her house, and when the drawing-room door was closed, she asked her husband in the passage—speaking in a very low tone—what he had written.
"Why, don't you know, mother?" said Mr. Lethbridge; but the superior air he assumed—as though he was intimately acquainted with everything Mr. Linton had written, and was rather surprised at his wife's question—was spoilt by a shamefacedness which he was not clever enough to conceal.
"No, father," said Mrs. Lethbridge; adding, triumphantly, "and I don't believe you do, either."
"Well, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a little laugh, "I don't. But he is very celebrated. Mr. Kiss says so. He writes plays, and his last one was not a success. It has troubled him greatly, poor fellow. Give us a good tea, mother."
Mrs. Lethbridge nodded, and sent him in to his visitors, and went herself down to the kitchen to attend to her domestic arrangements, where she was presently joined by her children and Phœbe.
"We don't want you, Bob," said Mrs. Lethbridge to her son; "go and join the gentlemen."
"I'd sooner stop here, mother," said Robert.
"Go away, there's a good boy," said the mother; "you will only put things back."
Robert, however, showed no inclination to leave the kitchen, but hovered about Phœbe like a butterfly about a flower.
"Do you hear what mother says?" demanded Fanny, imperiously; she was given to lord it occasionally over her brother. "Go at once, and listen to the gentlemen, and have your mind improved."
"Now you're chaffing me," said Robert, "and you know that always puts my back up."
Mrs. Lethbridge looked around with affectionate distraction in her aspect.
"Go, Robert," said Phœbe.
"Not if you call me 'Robert,' said he.
"Well, Bob."
"All right, I'll vanish. Fanny, there's a smut on your nose."
Which caused Fanny to rub that feature smartly with her handkerchief, and then to ask Phœbe in a tone of concern, "Is it off?" This sent Robert from the kitchen laughing, while Fanny called out to him that she would pay him for it. She laughed too, when he was gone, and declared that he was getting a greater tease every day. Presently all was bustle; the best cups and saucers were taken from the cupboard, and Phœbe, with her sleeves tucked up, was dusting them; Fanny was cutting the bread and buttering it; Aunt Leth was busy with eggs and rashers of bacon, and the frying-pan was on the fire; while, attending to the frying-pan and the kettle and the teapot, and working away generally with a will, was the most important person in the kitchen—the goddess, indeed, of that region—whose name, with a strange remissness, has not yet been mentioned: 'Melia Jane!
In these days of fine-lady-servants, the mere mention of so inestimable a treasure is an agreeable thing; for if ever there was a devoted, untiring, unselfish, capable, cheerful slave of the broom and the pan, that being was 'Melia Jane. Up early in the morning, without ever being called; up late at night, without a murmur; no Sundays out, as a law, the violation of which was a graver matter than the separation of church and state; cooking, scrubbing, washing, with a light heart, and as happy as the day is long. Could I write an epic, I would set about it, and call it "'Melia Jane."
Not a beauty; somewhat the reverse, indeed. But "Lor!" as she used to say, scratching her elbow, "beauty's only skin-deep." Nevertheless, she worshipped it in the persons of Fanny and Phœbe, to whom she was devotedly attached. Of the two, she leaned, perhaps, more closely and affectionately to Phœbe, for whom she entertained the profoundest admiration, "Wenus," she declared, "couldn't 'old a candle to 'er." And had she been asked, in the way of disputation, under what circumstances and to what intelligible purpose that goddess could be expected to hold a candle to Phœbe, she would doubtless have been prepared with a reply which would have confounded the interrogator.
She had a history, which can be briefly recorded.
Like all careful housewives with limited incomes, Mrs. Lethbridge had her washing "done" at home, and 'Melia Jane's mother, in times gone by, was Aunt Leth's washer-woman. She died when 'Melia Jane was ten years old, and the child, being friendless and penniless, was admitted into Mrs. Lethbridge's kitchen as a kind of juvenile help. She proved to be so clever and willing, and so "teachable," as Mrs. Lethbridge said, that when the old servant left to get married, 'Melia Jane took her place, and from that day did the entire work of the house. For the present, this brief record is sufficient. More of 'Melia Jane anon.
Robert burst into the kitchen in a state of great excitement.
"Mother, you didn't tell me Mr. Linton was a dramatic author. Just think, Phœbe; he writes plays! Isn't it grand?"
The girls opened their eyes very wide. There was indeed a luminary in the house, a star of the first magnitude. A dramatic author! It was enough to make them tremble.
"But why have you left them, Bob?" asked Mrs. Lethbridge.
"I was told to go," replied Robert. "They did not want me. They're talking business."
"Business!" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge. "What business can they have with father?"
"Perhaps," suggested Robert, "he is going to take a theatre, and Mr. Linton is going to write the plays, and Mr. Kiss is going to act in them."
"What nonsense you talk!" said Mrs. Lethbridge.
"Mother," said Robert, solemnly, "my mind's made up."
"A very small parcel," remarked Fanny, thus paying him off for the smut on her nose.
"I'm serious," said Robert; "I'm fixed—yes, fixed as the polar star. That sounds well. I shall go on the stage."
"And off again, very quick," said Fanny.
"What! turn actor, Bob?" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge.
"Yes," said Robert, folding his arms; "a second Irving."
"Avaunt, and quit my sight!" cried Phœbe, seizing the rolling-pin and striking an attitude.
They all fell to laughing, and 'Melia Jane stared at the young people, with her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.
