'I don't know what you call that,' said Oliver, pointing with his fork to a piece of meat in the pasty. 'It looks to me as if it were a goat caterpillar got in. I suppose you found it crawling across the lane from one of the willow trees, and, because we're poor and can't afford meat, stuck it in.'
'Father, it is wholesome; it is nothing but a bit of pig-crackling. You know we were given a piece of young pork by Mrs. Voaden, the other day.'
Then Oliver sprang to his feet, and Honor started back in surprise.
Without a word of salutation, with white face, and glaring eyes, with hand extended and shaking, Taverner Langford came in at the door.
'There! there!' he said, in a voice raised almost to a scream. 'This is what comes of doing a favour. Now I am punished.'
'What is the matter, Mr. Langford?' asked the carrier deferentially.
'What is the matter? Everything is the matter,' he cried. He turned to Honor: 'It is your doing, yours, yours.'
'What have I done?' she asked, with composure.
'You asked me to take him in; the scoundrel, the rogue.'
'You cannot mean my brother Charles,' said Honor, with dignity; 'or you would not speak thus under our roof to his father and sisters.'