But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many, many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her others.

She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar, too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had sound boots on their feet.

The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had; nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far, though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a whole pair of boots—whole and sound as the very cottagers had.

If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put down by circumstances, she was above external things.

But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over—she had scarcely eaten anything—and as she glanced from time to time at her father's empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.

The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.

The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and dying on their seats.

The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of them—only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty chair.

And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I will not be a Flamma."

Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his descendants.

There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew his custom—to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn, and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two sovereigns it was in all—one for each—but the thirty-third was always a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best pleased him during the year.

A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually considered himself the nearest to the Will.

Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that moment—not that he had done anything to her personally—but he left her dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!

Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames: Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility, Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.

By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder, saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.

Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.

Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw under the table.

Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the back of his son's empty chair.

He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.

Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.

A sorrowful thing to see—the old man of ninety clinging to the back of his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble on the floor—his back bowed a little more—and he groaned deeply, three times.

We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was a human cry for help in the old man's groan—his heart yearned for his son's strong arm to lean on.

The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice, whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of reconciliation.

The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her father in half an hour. Groaning there—the hideous old monster! and her mother without a decent pair of boots.

In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for her father, and the guinea—the spade-guinea—for herself. She muttered something—she knew not what—she could but just restrain herself from throwing the money on the floor.

It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!

Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.

There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.

Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal—the spade-guinea stamp of approval—and then, above all things, to be honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted she would have been at the thought of the triumph!

But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people—pah! a triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured by this old horror—she revolted at it. He honour her with his approval—she hated him.

The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place—till she went out to the gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the crack in her boot.

This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!

The Flamma blood was up in her veins—what did she care for guineas!

As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.

So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two, till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.

Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her labours.