"I don't want to hear about the cook. The money you spend in
housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had a
day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for
nothing but pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the
place or within ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed
to look them in the face at the station. It is past seven; why isn't
dinner ready?"

"Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour."

"Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!"

Mr. Brookes's face grew livid. The end of all things was at hand; his
dinner had been put back half an hour! This was a climax in the
affairs of his life, which for the moment he failed to grasp or
estimate. Was a father ever cursed with such daughters as his? He had
been in the City all day working for them; he did not marry because he
wished to leave them his money, and this was the return they made to
him. His dinner had been put back half an hour! Passion sustained him
for a while; but he gave way, and, pulling out a silk handkerchief, he
sank into a chair.

"Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean
it."

Mr. Brookes wept for a few minutes; Maggie strove to soothe him; he
waved her away, he wiped his eyes and in a voice broken with anguish,
"Ah, well," he said, "I suppose it will be all the same a hundred
years hence." In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such