Read "John Halifax, Gentleman" by Dinah Mulock online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Dinner was over; my father and I took ours in the large parlour, where the stiff, high-backed chairs eyed one another in opposite rows across the wide oaken floor, shiny and hard as marble, and slippery as glass. Except the table, the sideboard and the cuckoo clock, there was no other furniture.
I dared not bring the poor wandering lad into this, my father's especial domain; but as soon as he was away in the tan-yard I sent for John.