"Aunt Carroll is coming to dinner to-day," said Dolly the next day, with a serious face.

"I know she is. Have a nice dinner for her. I don\'t think she ever has a nice dinner at home."

"And the three eldest girls are coming."

"Three!"

"You asked them yourself on Sunday."

"Very well. They said their papa would be away on business." It was understood that Mr. Carroll was never asked to the Manor-house.

"Business! There is a club he belongs to where he dines and gets drunk once a month. It\'s the only thing he does regularly."

"They must have their dinner, at any rate," said Mr. Grey. "I don\'t think they should suffer because he drinks." This had been a subject much discussed between them, but on the present occasion Miss Grey would not renew it. She despatched her father in a cab, the cab having been procured because he was supposed to be a quarter of an hour late, and then went to work to order her dinner.

It has been said that Miss Grey hated the Carrolls; but she hated the daughters worse than the mother, and of all the people she hated in the world she hated Amelia Carroll the worst. Amelia, the eldest, entertained an idea that she was more of a personage in the world\'s eyes than her cousin,—that she went to more parties, which certainly was true if she went to any,—that she wore finer clothes, which was also true, and that she had a lover, whereas Dolly Grey,—as she called her cousin behind her back,—had none. This lover had something to do with horses, and had only been heard of, had never been seen, at the Manor-house. Sophy was a good deal hated also, being a forward, flirting, tricky girl of seventeen, who had just left the school at which Uncle John had paid for her education. Georgina, the third, was still at school under similar circumstances, and was pardoned her egregious noisiness and romping propensities under the score of youth. She was sixteen, and was possessed of terrible vitality. "I am sure they take after their father altogether," Mr. Grey had once said when the three left the Manor-house together. At half-past six punctually they came. Dolly heard a great clatter of four people leaving their clogs and cloaks in the hall, and would not move out of the unused drawing-room, in which for the moment she was seated. Betsey had to prepare the dinner-table down-stairs, and would have been sadly discomfited had she been driven to do it in the presence of three Carroll girls. For it must be understood that Betsey had no greater respect for the Carroll girls than her mistress. "Well, Aunt Carroll, how does the world use you?"

"Very badly. You haven\'t been up to see me for ten days."

"I haven\'t counted; but when I do come I don\'t often do any good. How are Minna, and Brenda, and Potsey?"

"Poor Potsey has got a nasty boil under her arm."

"It comes from eating too much toffy," said Georgina. "I told her it would."

"How very nasty you are!" said Miss Carroll. "Do leave the child and her ailments alone!"

"Poor papa isn\'t very well, either," said Sophy, who was supposed to be her father\'s pet.

"I hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his friends to-night," said Miss Grey.

"You have always something ill-natured to say about papa," said Sophy.

"Nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his presence." This came from his afflicted wife, who, in spite of all his misfortunes, would ever speak with some respect of her husband\'s employments. "He wasn\'t at all in a fit state to go to-night, but he had promised, and that was enough."

When they had waited three-quarters of an hour Amelia began to complain,—certainly not without reason. "I wonder why Uncle John always keeps us waiting in this way?"

"Papa has, unfortunately, something to do with his time, which is not altogether his own." There was not much in these words, but the tone in which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than Amelia Carroll. But at that moment the cab arrived, and Dolly went down to meet her father.

"Have they come?" he asked.

"Come," she answered, taking his gloves and comforter from him, and giving him a kiss as she did so. "That girl up-stairs is nearly famished."

"I won\'t be half a moment," said the repentant father, hastening up-stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement.

"I wouldn\'t hurry for her," said Dolly; "but of course you\'ll hurry. You always do, don\'t you, papa?" Then they sat down to dinner.

"Well, girls, what is your news?"

"We were out to-day on the Brompton Road," said the eldest, "and there came up Prince Chitakov\'s drag with four roans."

"Prince Chitakov! I didn\'t know there was such a prince."

"Oh, dear, yes; with very stiff mustaches, turned up high at the corners, and pink cheeks, and a very sharp, nobby-looking hat, with a light-colored grey coat, and light gloves. You must know the prince."

"Upon my word, I never heard of him, my dear. What did the prince do?"

"He was tooling his own drag, and he had a lady with him on the box. I never saw anything more tasty than her dress,—dark red silk, with little fluffy fur ornaments all over it. I wonder who she was?"

"Mrs. Chitakov, probably," said the attorney.

"I don\'t think the prince is a married man," said Sophy.

"They never are, for the most part," said Amelia; "and she wouldn\'t be Mrs. Chitakov, Uncle John."

"Wouldn\'t she, now? What would she be? Can either of you tell me what the wife of a Prince of Chitakov would call herself?"

"Princess of Chitakov, of course," said Sophy. "It\'s the Princess of Wales."

"But it isn\'t the Princess of Christian, nor yet the Princess of Teck, nor the Princess of England. I don\'t see why the lady shouldn\'t be Mrs. Chitakov, if there is such a lady."

"Papa, don\'t bamboozle her," said his daughter.

"But," continued the attorney, "why shouldn\'t the lady have been his wife? Don\'t married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments?"

"I wish, John, you wouldn\'t talk to the girls in that strain," said their mother. "It really isn\'t becoming."

"To suggest that the lady was the gentleman\'s wife?"

"But I was going to say," continued Amelia, "that as the prince drove by he kissed his hand—he did, indeed. And Sophy and I were walking along as demurely as possible. I never was so knocked of a heap in all my life."

"He did," said Sophy. "It\'s the most impertinent thing I ever heard. If my father had seen it he\'d have had the prince off the box of the coach in no time."

"Then, my dear," said the attorney, "I am very glad that your father did not see it." Poor Dolly, during this conversation about the prince, sat angry and silent, thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty. That she should be sitting at table with a girl who could boast that a reprobate foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable four-horsed coach! For it was in that light that Miss Grey regarded it. "And did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable encounter with the prince?"

"Nothing nearly so interesting," said Sophy.

"That was hardly to be expected," said the attorney. "Jane, you will have a glass of port-wine? Girls, you must have a glass of port-wine to support you after your disappointment with the prince."

"We were not disappointed in the least," said Amelia.

"Pray, pray, let the subject drop," said Dolly.

"That is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you," said Sophy. Then Miss Grey sunk again into silence, crushed beneath this last blow.

In the evening, when the dinner-things had been taken away, a matter of business came up, and took the place of the prince and his mustaches. Mrs. Carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could "lend" her a small sum of twenty pounds. It came out in conversation that the small sum was needed to satisfy some imperious demand made upon Mr. Carroll by a tailor. "He must have clothes, you know," said the poor woman, wailing. "He doesn\'t have many, but he must have some." There had been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since, and, to tell the truth, Mr. Grey did require to have the subject argued, in fear of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his daughter if he gave the money too easily. The loan had to be arranged in full conclave, as otherwise Mrs. Carroll would have found it difficult to obtain access to her............