They returned down the hill to dinner, which was fixed at any time at which their father's and mother's morning work in the parish usually concluded. Convenience as regarded afternoon callers was the last thing to enter into the consideration of unselfish Mr and Mrs Clare; though the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter to wish that their parents would conform a little to modern notions.

The walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular, who was now an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse dapes inemptae of the dairyman's somewhat coarsely-laden table. But neither of the old people had arrived, and it was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting that their parents entered. The self- denying pair had been occupied in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners, whom they, somewhat inconsistently, tried to keep imprisoned in the flesh, their own appetites being quite forgotten.

The family sat down to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands was deposited before them. Angel looked round for Mrs Crick's black-puddings, which he had directed to be nicely grilled, as they did them at the dairy, and of which he wished his father and mother to appreciate the marvellous herbal savours as highly as he did himself.

`Ah! you are looking for the black-puddings, my dear boy,' observed Clare's mother. `But I am sure you will not mind doing without them, as I am sure your father and I shall not, when you know the reason. I suggested to him that we should take Mrs Crick's kind present to the children of the man who can earn nothing just now because of his attacks of delirium tremens; and lie agreed that it would be a great pleasure to them; so we did.'

`Of course,' said Angel cheerfully, looking round for the mead.

`I found the mead so extremely alcoholic,' continued his mother, `that it was quite unfit for use as a beverage, but as valuable as rum or brandy in an emergency; so I have put it in my medicine-closet.'

`We never drink spirits at this table, on principle,' added his father.

`But what shall I tell the dairyman's wife?' said Angel.

`The truth, of course,' said his father.

`I rather wanted to say we enjoyed the mead and the blackpuddings very much. She is a kind, jolly sort of body, and is sure to ask me directly I return.'

`You cannot, if we did not,' Mr Clare answered lucidly.

`AH - no; though that mead was a drop of pretty tipple.'

`A what?' said Cuthbert and Felix both.

`Oh--'tis an expression they use down at Talbothays,' replied Angel, blushing. He felt that his parents were right in their practice if wrong in their want of sentiment, and said no more.