"It's Mr. Kiss," whispered Fanny.
"And a strange gentleman," whispered Bob.
"Uncle Leth said," whispered Phœbe, "'the celebrated author.' I wonder if he's joking?"
"They are going to stop to tea," whispered Fanny, "and mother has sent them into the drawing-room while she gets out the best tea-things. We must go and help her."
Aunt Leth, from the passage below, coughed aloud, having detected the presence of the young people, and there was an instant scuttling away above, and a sound of smothered laughter. To Aunt Leth's relief, this was not noticed by her visitors, who made their way into the drawing-room. It was called so more from habit than because it was a room set apart for holiday and grand occasions; there was no such room in the house of the Lethbridges, which was a home in the truest sense of the word.
Aunt Leth was deeply impressed by the circumstance of having a celebrated author in her house, and when the drawing-room door was closed, she asked her husband in the passage—speaking in a very low tone—what he had written.
"Why, don't you know, mother?" said Mr. Lethbridge; but the superior air he assumed—as though he was intimately acquainted with everything Mr. Linton had written, and was rather surprised at his wife's question—was spoilt by a shamefacedness which he was not clever enough to conceal.
"No, father," said Mrs. Lethbridge; adding, triumphantly, "and I don't believe you do, either."
"Well, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a little laugh, "I don't. But he is very celebrated. Mr. Kiss says so. He writes plays, and his last one was not a success. It has troubled him greatly, poor fellow. Give us a good tea, mother."
Mrs. Lethbridge nodded, and sent him in to his visitors, and went herself down to the kitchen to attend to her domestic arrangements, where she was presently joined by her children and Phœbe.