enquired anxiously.

"Just a morsel?" Mr. Barnes asked, tapping the joint insinuatingly
with his carving knife.

"No, I thank you!" Mr. Fitzgerald declared firmly. "I have done
excellently."

"Then if you will put the joint on the sideboard, Adolphus," Mrs.
Barnes directed, "Maud and I will change the plates. We always let
the girl go out on Sundays, Mr. Fitzgerald," she explained, turning
to their guest. "It's very awkward, of course, but they seem to
expect it."

"Quite natural, I'm sure," Mr. Fitzgerald murmured, watching Maud's
light movements with admiring eyes. "I like to see ladies interested
in domestic work."

"There's one thing I will say for Maud," her proud mother declared,
plumping down a dish of jelly upon the table, "she does know what's
what in keeping house, and even if she hasn't to scrape and save as
I did when David and I were first married, economy is a great thing
when you're young. I have always said so, and I stick to it."

"Quite right, Mother," Mr. Barnes declared.

"If instead of sitting there," Mrs. Barnes continued in high good
humour, "you were to get a bottle of that port wine out of the
cellarette, we might drink Mr. Fitzgerald's health, being as it's
his first visit."