He's just practisin' a new piece for his club to-night.' Ackroyd advanced into the parlour.

The table was spread for tea, and at the tray sat Mrs.Bower's daughter, Mary.

She was a girl of nineteen, sparely made, and rather plain-featured, yet with a thoughtful, interesting face.

Her smile was brief, and always passed into an expression of melancholy, which in its turn did not last long; for the most part she seemed occupied with thoughts which lay on the borderland between reflection and anxiety.

Her dress was remarkably plain, contrasting with her mother's, and her hair was arranged in the simplest way.
In a round-backed chair at a distance from the table sat an old man with a wooden leg, a fiddle on his knee.