So all she could do was to smile pleasantly at her two visitors and nod her head as they each came up and held out their hands to be shaken.
"Better sit down," suggested Brown.
Parson and Telson thereupon retreated to the sofa, on the edge of which they sat for another five or ten minutes, looking about them complacently, and not attempting to break the silence of the scene.
The silence, however, was soon broken by a loud double knock at the hall door, which was the signal for Mr Brown, senior, to bolt into the room in a guilty way with one cuff not quite buttoned, and stand on the hearthrug with as free-and-easy an air as if he had been waiting there a quarter of an hour at least.

Knock followed knock in quick succession, and after the usual amount of fluttering in the hall, the greengrocer flung open the drawing-room door and ushered in Dr and Mrs Patrick, Miss Stringer, and half a dozen other arrivals.
Our two heroes, sitting side by side, unnoticed on the edge of the sofa, had full opportunity to take stock of the various guests, most of whom were strangers to them.
As every one appeared to be about the doctor's age, things promised slowly for Parson and Telson, whose interest in Brown's party decidedly languished when finally they found themselves swept off their perch and helplessly wedged into a corner by an impenetrable phalanx of skirts.
But this was nothing compared with a discovery they made at the same time that they had missed their tea! There was a merry rattle of cups and spoons in a room far off, through the half-open door of which they could catch glimpses of persons drinking tea, and of Brown handing round biscuits and cake.

The sight of this was too much to be borne.

It was at least worth an effort to retrieve their fatal mistake.
"I say," said Telson, looking for his friend round the skirts of a stately female, "hadn't we better go and help Brown, Parson ?" Luckless youth! The lady in question, hearing the unexpected voice at her side, backed a little and caught sight of the speaker.
"What, dear ?" she said, benevolently, taking his hand and sitting down on the sofa; "and who are you, my little man ?" "My little man" was fairly trapped; there was no escaping this seizure.
Parson got away safely to the tea-room, and the sight of him dodging about among the cakes and cups only added to the misery of the hapless Telson.
"Who are you, my little dear ?" said the lady, who was no other than Miss Stringer herself.
Telson, fortunately for him, was ignorant of the fact--as ignorant, indeed, as Miss Stringer was of the fact that the little dear she was addressing was a Willoughbite.
"Telson, ma'am," said Telson, following Parson with longing eyes.
"Johnny ?" said the lady.
"No--Augustus," replied the proud bearer of the name.
Miss Stringer surveyed him benevolently.

He was a nice-looking boy, was Telson--and the lady thought so too.
"And will you give me a kiss, Augustus dear ?" she said, with her most winning smile.
What could Augustus do?
A hundred desperate alternatives darted through his mind.