He was shown into the study which had belonged to the master of the house, and unfolded Cecil’s suggestion to the lawyer, who proved to be a much more fatherly sort of man than the nurse had represented. He was quite certain that his client would be only too grateful for so friendly an act. “Things have gone hardly with poor Grantley,” he remarked. “And such an offer will be the greatest possible surprise to him. The poor fellow has not had a fair chance; handicapped with such a wife, one can almost forgive him for going to the bad. I shall be seeing him once more to-morrow, and will let you know what he says. But of course there can be but one answer—he will thankfully accept your help.” Meanwhile Cecil had been taken upstairs to the nursery; it looked a trifle less desolate than the rest of the house, yet lying on the table among the children’s toys she saw an evening paper with the account of the verdict and sentence on John Grantley. The nurse had gone into the adjoining room, but she quickly returned. “They are asleep, miss, but you’ll come in and see them, wont you?” Cecil had wished for this, and followed her guide into the dimly lighted night nursery, where in two little cribs lay her future charges. They were beautiful children, and as she watched them in their untroubled sleep and thought of the mother who had deserted them and disgraced her name, and the father who was that moment beginning his five years of penal servitude, her heart ached for the little ones, and more and more she longed to help them. Lancelot, the elder of the two, was just four years old; he had a sweet, rosy, determined little face with a slightly Jewish look about it, his curly brown hair was long enough to fall back over the pillow, and in his fat little hand he grasped a toy horse, which was his inseparable companion night and day. The little girl was much smaller and much more fragile-looking, though in some respects the two were alike. Her baby face looked exquisite now in its perfect peace, and Cecil did not wonder that the nurse’s tears broke forth again as she spoke of the little two-year-old Gwen being sent to school. They were still talking about the matter when Mr. Boniface rejoined them; the lawyer also came in, and, to the nurse’s surprise, even looked at the sleeping children. “Quite human-like,” as she remarked afterward to the cook. “Don’t you distress yourself about the children,” he said kindly. “It will be all right for them. Probably they will only have to move across the road. We shall know definitely about it to-morrow; but this gentleman has very generously offered to take care of them.” The nurse’s tearful gratitude was interrupted by a sound from one of the cribs. Lance, disturbed perhaps by the voices, was talking in his sleep. “Gee-up,” he shouted, in exact imitation of a carter, as he waved the toy-horse in the air.