"Is he in Orders?"
"No. He intends to be, I think."
"Well, of course I can say nothing about it, one way or the other," concluded Mr. Tait, as he went out.
Jane stood before the fire in thought, her fingers unconsciously smoothing the parting of the glossy brown hair on her well-shaped head as she looked at it in the pier-glass. To say that she never did such a thing in vanity would be wrong; no pretty girl ever lived but was conscious of her good looks. Jane, however, was neither thinking of herself nor of vanity just then. She took a very practical part in home duties: with her mother, a practical part amidst her father's poor: and at this moment her thoughts were running on the additional work it might bring her, should this gentleman come to reside with them.
"What did you say his name was, Francis?" she suddenly asked of her brother.
"Whose?"
"That gentleman's. The new master at your school."
"Halliburton. I don't know his Christian name."
"I wonder," mused Jane aloud, "whether he will wear out his stockings as Mr. Acton did? There was always a dreadful amount of darning to be done to his. Is he an old guy, Francis?"
"Isn't he!" responded Francis Tait. "Don't faint when you see some one come in old and fat, with green rims to his spectacles. I don't say he's quite old enough to be papa's father, but——"