"I'll tell your dada, and see what he'll say, if you call the meat
tallow; and you're just as bad, Joe; worse if anything--gracious me,
here's waste! well, I'll lock it up for you, and you shall both of you
eat it to-morrow, before you have a bit of anything else."

Then followed a desperate fit of coughing.

"My poor Minny!" said the mother, "you're just as bad as ever. Why
would you go out on the wet grass?--Is there none of the black currant
jam left?"

"No, mother," coughed Minny, "not a bit."

"Greg ate it all," peached Sarah, an elder sister; "I told him not, but
he would."

"Greg, I'll have you flogged, and you never shall come from school
again. What's that you're saying, Mary?"

"There's a jintleman in the drawing-room as is axing afther masther."

"Gentleman--what gentleman?" asked the lady.

"Sorrow a know I know, ma'am!" said Mary, who was a new
importation--"only, he's a dark, sightly jintleman, as come on a
horse."

"And did you send for the master?"

"I did, ma'am; I was out in the yard, and bad Patsy go look for him."