Anywhere else I believe I could not have recognised him. Not from his shabbiness; even in rags Francis would be something of the gentleman; but from his utterly broken-down appearance, his look of hopeless indifference, settled discontent; the air of a man who has tried all things and found them vanity. Seeing me, he instinctively set down the child, who clung to his knees, screaming loudly to "Daddy." Francis blushed violently, and then laughed. "The brat owns me, you see; he has not forgotten me--likes me also a little, which cannot be said for most people. Heyday, no getting rid of him? Come along then, young man; I must e'en make the best of you." Franky, nothing loth, clambered up, hugged him smotheringly round the neck, and broke into his own triumphant "Ha! ha! he! "--His father turned and kissed him. Then, somehow, I felt as if, it were easier to speak to Francis Charteris. Only a word or two--enquiries about his health--how long he had left Liverpool--and whether he meant to return. "Of course. Only a day's holiday. A horse in a mill--that is what I am now. Nothing for it but to grind on to the end of the chapter--eh, Franky my boy!" "Ha! ha! he!" screamed the child, with another delighted hug. "He seems fond of you," I said. "Oh yes; he always was." Francis sighed. I am sure, nature was tugging hard at the selfish pleasure-loving heart. And pity--I know it was not wrong, Max!--was pulling sore at mine. I said I had heard of his illness in the winter, and was glad to find him so much recovered:--how long had he been about again? "How long? Indeed I forget. I am so apt to forget things now. Except "--he added bitterly--"the clerk's stool and the office window with the spider-webs over it--and the thirty shillings a-week. That's my income, Dora--I beg your pardon, Miss Dora,--I forgot I was no longer a gentleman, but a clerk at thirty shillings a-week." I said, I did not see why that should make him less of a gentleman; and, broken-down as he was,--sitting crouching over the fire with his sickly cheek passed against that rosy one,--I fancied I saw something of the man--the honest, true man--flash across the forlorn aspect of poor Francis Charteris. I would have liked to stay and talk with him, and said so, but my sister was outside. "Is she? will she be coming in here?"--And he shrank nervously into his corner. "I have been so ill, you know." He need not be afraid, I told him--we should have driven off in two minutes. There was not the slightest chance of their meeting--in all human probability he would never meet her more. "Never more!" I had not thought to see him so much affected. "You were right, Dora, I never did deserve Penelope--yet there is something I should like to have said to her. Stop, hold back the curtain--she cannot see me sitting here?" "No."