"How are you, my dear afflicted friends?"
said Miss Fluke, solemnly. The weather was
warm, and Miss Fluke's face was very red,
and her simple straw bonnet with white ribbons
framed it in an incongruous manner. Her
delicate lilac muslin, too, was scarcely in
harmony with the very tough and stalwart character
of her figure. "My dear afflicted friends,"
repeated Miss Fluke, "how are you?"

"Pretty well, thank you," said Penelope,
coolly, "and how are you, poor creature?"

Miss Fluke opened her eyes very wide
indeed. "Poor creature!" she repeated, in a
puzzled manner.

"Yes; poor creature. Are we not all poor
creatures? I didn't know that you had any
dispensation from the common lot."

"No, no," interposed the Reverend Decimus,
with obtuse cheerfulness. "To be sure not.
Quite right, Miss Charlewood. We are all—
one and all—miserable sinners. But, alas! all
have not our glorious privilege of knowing that
we are so."

The little lath-and-plaster house seemed to
quiver as the brassy tones of Mr. Fluke's voice
rang through it.

"What a horrid place this is!" said Augusta
to her mother. "And that bare dreary field at
the back! I thought I never should find the
house."

"So we thought," said Penelope, dryly.

"Well, Penny, now I really think that very
uncalled for and unkind. We have only been
in town eight days, and it was impossible to be
here sooner. This morning, just as I had made
up my mind to make an effort and come to
mamma, Mr. and Miss Fluke called. I told them
of my intention, and they offered to accompany
me."

The truth was, that Augusta, who had not
got rid of her sensitive horror of "scenes,"
had considerably dreaded the meeting with her
family, and had gladly accepted the Flukes' offer,
thinking that any very confidential or agitating
conversation upon family affairs would thereby
be avoided. Penelope understood it all
perfectly.

"And are you not surprised to see me and
Hannah in this great city, my dear friends?"
said Mr. Fluke. "You have not yet inquired
what brings us hither—eh?"

"Papa is going to preach a charity sermon at
the request of an old friend," struck in Miss
Fluke. "Papa and my sisters and I have
been at the sea-side, recruiting our strength for
our winter duties."

The idea thus conjured up, of a fresh stock
of vigour having been taken in by the whole
Fluke family, was calculated to appal a weak
mind.

"We had to pass through London on our
way home, so papa has the precious opportunity
of sowing the good seed amongst a very low
and numerous congregation on the Surrey side
of the river, without incurring any serious
expense."

"Ah," observed Penny, "sowing the seed
for them comes cheaper than giving them bread,
doesn't it?"

"And where are my brothers?" asked
Augusta, languidly.

"At work," responded her sister, with
brevity.

"Oh, ah, yes, of course. I know. But I mean,
where do they live? You don't mean to say
that there is room for you all here!"

"Well, love," said Mrs. Charlewood, "it is
close quarters for 'em. But we 'ave just
bedrooms enough, with the servant girl going
'ome to sleep. Watty finds it a bit dull, love."

"I should think so, mamma! Poor Watty!
With his habits and tastes—and poor Clement,
too, of course," added Augusta, hastily, catching
her sister's eye.

Mrs. Charlewood's maternal heart had yearned
towards her absent daughter, despite the cold
selfishness of her letters. Now the meeting
had come, and there was a leaden sensation of
disappointment in the mother's breast.
Augusta made it apparent in fifty ways, that she was
henceforth apart from the rest of the family.
She invited her mother to come and see her, but
it was in a suppressed, dry manner, as though
she were undecided whether to be ashamed or
proud of the condescension. Augusta shrank
from contact with poverty as she shrank from
exposing her delicate skin to an east wind.
And, to her, her mother's present circumstances
meant great poverty. Mrs. Charlewood had
most of the material comforts which she needed
or desired; but to Augusta, born and cradled
amidst great wealth, the absence of luxuries
appeared privation. Penelope, with brave self-
sacrifice, and it may be with a certain
enjoyment in the long unused pleasure of whetting
her keen tongue upon Miss Fluke's solid self-
satisfied dulness, engaged the visitors in
conversation, thus leaving her mother free to talk
with Augusta. At length the latter rose to go.
The Flukes rose also.

"We have been trying to induce Penelope to
come and hear papa's sermon next Sunday,"
said Miss Fluke, impressively. " I hope you
will come, at all events, Mrs. Charlewood. You
were always a faithful member of papa's flock."

"It's a long way off, isn't it?" said Mrs.
Charlewood, hesitatingly.

"Not at all," pronounced Miss Fluke, in her
infallible manner. "No distance whatever.
Papa preaches in the morning, and again in the
evening. There is the name of the church
written down."

"Well, we will think of it," said Penelope,
shaking hands with Mr. Fluke. Augusta
lingered to say a word or two to her mother, and
then they all went out to the front door
together.

The cabman was half reclining on the box,
with one elbow supported on the roof of his cab.
He had a pipe in his mouth, and was reading a
Sunday paper.

"What are you reading, my good man?"
demanded Miss Fluke, marching up to the
vehicle.