MABEL'S PROGRESS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."

                                 BOOK II.

    CHAPTER IV. THE TRESCOTTS AT HOME.

"I'M blowed if this ain't a rum game!" exclaimed
Mr. Alfred Trescott to his father, enunciating
the words with some difficulty, by reason
of the cigar which he held between his teeth.

The Trescott family was assembled in Mrs.
Hutchins's front kitchen on the Sunday evening
on which Mrs. Saxelby had taken counsel
of Clement Charlewood. The mistress of the
house was from home, and the master had
retired to the attic in which he slept. Mr.
Hutchins, poor hard-working man, always went
to rest at about seven o'clock on Sunday evenings,
and usually enjoyed a long and uninterrupted
slumber, to judge by the sonorous snores
that made the lath and plaster of Number 23,
New Bridge-street, tremble.

Mrs. Hutchins had become an ardent disciple
of Miss Fluke, and was, at that moment, listening
to the supererogatory sermon which Miss
Fluke denominated "Sabbath evening lecture."
Mrs. Hutchins found, to her pleased surprise,
that she got nearly as much excitement out
of Miss Fluke's spiritual exercises as from
Rosalba herself; and she found, too, that
whereas she must frankly own to seeking
Rosalba for her own personal amusement and
delectation, it was possible to lay claim to
great merit and virtue on the score of her
frequent attendance at the religious meetings
held under the patronage of the Reverend
Decimus Fluke and his family. In short, the
profession and practice of the Flukian school of
piety combined the usually incompatible
advantages of eating one's cake and having it too.
So Mrs. Hutchins was at present a model
parishioner, and had—to use the jargon in vogue
amongst the congregation of St. Philip-in-the-
Fields—"got conversion."

Little Corda, still pale and delicate, but quite
recovered from her accident, was sitting on a
wooden stool before the hearth, with her head
leaning against her father's knee, and her
musing eyes fixed on the glowing caverns in
the coal fire. Mr. Trescott was copying music
at the deal table, which was strewn with loose
sheets of manuscript orchestral parts, gritty
with the sand that had been thrown upon the
wet ink to dry it quickly, and save time. Alfred
took his cheap cigar from between his teeth, and
repeated, with more emphasis and distinctness
than before, that he was blowed if this wasn't
a rum game.

"Alf," said Corda, looking up very seriously,
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that. I wish
you wouldn't say 'blowed' and 'rum.' They're
quite vulgar words, and you ought not to use
them. People might think it was because you
didn't know any better. But you do know
better, don't you?"

"Pussy-cat. I haven't time for your nonsense,"
was her brother's gracious reply; "I
was talking to the governor."

"Well, well, well," said Mr. Trescott,
irritably, "what is it? What do you want? One,
two, three, four—tut! you've made me write a
bar twice over."

"Don't be crusty, governor," returned his
son, coolly. Alfred was of an irascible and
violent temper himself, but his father's nervous
irritability usually made him assume a stoically
calm demeanour. He felt his own advantage
in being cool, and besides he had an innate and
cruel love of teasing, which was gratified
by the spectacle of. powerless anger. "You
needn't flare up; it'll only make you bilious,
and I shan't be frightened into speaking pretty.
I was saying that this letter of Miss Earnshaw's
is a rum game."

Mr. Trescott finished the page of manuscript
on which he was engaged, sprinkled some pounce
over it, piled the loose sheets one upon the
other in a neat packet, and then, gently moving
Corda's head from its resting-place, turned his
chair round from the table, and stared at the fire
with hands buried deep in his pockets, and a
thoughtful frown on his face.

"It's very natural," he said, after a long
silence, "that if Mrs. Walton is her aunt she
should want to get her aunt's address. I was
sure, from the first moment I saw that girl's
face, she was very like some one I know. And
it's Mrs. Walton's blind husband, of course.
There's a likeness between her and Polly, too;
but Polly isn't so handsome."

"But ain't it a little odd, don't you think,
that Miss Earnshaw shouldn't know her own
people's address, but should have to write to us
for it? Or is that very natural too?"

"Well," said Mr. Trescott, " I will send her