On the Friday he saw them all, as Mrs. Moreen had promised, for her husband had come back and the girls and the other son were at home. Mr. Moreen had a white moustache, a confiding¹ manner and, in his buttonhole, the ribbon of a foreign order — bestowed², as Pemberton eventually learned, for services. For what services he never clearly ascertained³: this was a point — one of a large number — that Mr. Moreen’s manner never confided⁵. What it emphatically did confide⁴ was that he was even more a man of the world than you might first make out. Ulick, the firstborn, was in visible training for the same profession — under the disadvantage as yet, however, of a buttonhole but feebly floral and a moustache with no pretensions⁶ to type. The girls had hair and figures and manners and small fat feet, but had never been out alone. As for Mrs. Moreen Pemberton saw on a nearer view that her elegance⁷ was intermittent⁸ and her parts didn’t always match. Her husband, as she had promised, met with enthusiasm Pemberton’s ideas in regard to a salary. The young man had endeavoured to keep these stammerings modest, and Mr. Moreen made it no secret that he found them wanting in “style.” He further mentioned that he aspired⁹ to be intimate with his children, to be their best friend, and that he was always looking out for them. That was what he went off for, to London and other places — to look out; and this vigilance was the theory of life, as well as the real occupation, of the whole family. They all looked out, for they were very frank on the subject of its being necessary. They desired it to be understood that they were earnest people, and also that their fortune, though quite adequate for earnest people, required the most careful administration. Mr. Moreen, as the parent bird, sought

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