digestible, though cooked in this way it is not so harmful, and I thought that you, after your"
The master of Jalna listened deferentially, his eyes on her face, then he turned to his uncle Nicholas. "Another helping, Uncle Nick?"
Nicholas wiped his drooping grey moustache with an immense table napkin and rumbled: "Not another bite of anything. But I should like one more cup of tea, Augusta, if you've any left."
"Uncle Ernest, more of this cheese stuff?"
Ernest waved the offer aside with a delicate white hand. "My dear boy, no! I should not have touched it at all. I wish we might not have these hot dishes for supper. I am tempted, and then I suffer."
"Piers?"
Piers had already had two helpings, but, with a teasing look out of the corner of his eye at Finch's long face, he said: "I shouldn't mind another spoonful."
"Me, too!" exclaimed Wakefield. "I'd like some more."
"I forbid it," said Augusta, pouring her third cup of tea. "You are too young a boy to eat a cheese dish at night."
"And you," put in her brother Nicholas, "are too old a woman to swill down a potful of tea at this hour."
The air of dignified offence, always worn by Lady Buckley, deepened. Her voice, too, became throaty. "I wish, Nicholas, that you would try not to be coarse. I know it is difficult, but you should consider what a bad example it is for the boys."
Her brother Ernest, desirous of preventing a squabble, remarked: "You have such excellent nerves, Augusta, that I am sure you can drink unlimited tea. I only wish that my digestion—my nerves"
Augusta interrupted him angrily: "Whoever heard of tea hurting anyone? It's coffee that is dangerous. The Whiteoaks, and the Courts, too, were all indefatigable drinkers of tea."
"And rum," added Nicholas. "What do you say,
