Stephen Walker seemed for once to have laid aside that nervous timidity which had cost him so much during his life, and which had become almost a part of his nature; he chatted with Frank quietly and cheerfully, as one gentleman with another. The conversation turned upon travels, and Frank found to his astonishment that there was hardly a place he had visited in Europe that his host did not know as well as he did himself. As for Carry, she could hardly believe her senses. Was this her dear, nervous old father? She had heard him say incidentally that he had travelled when he was a young man, but she had had no idea of the extent of his journeyings. As the conversation went on, her blue eyes opened wider and wider, and at last she was so convinced that she must be dreaming, that she ran the needle, with which she was pretending to work, into her finger, to assure herself that she was awake. Frank remained for about an hour in conversation with Stephen Walker, and then took his leave, promising that he would call again. With Carry he had hardly exchanged a word after his first entrance; indeed he had been so much interested in his conversation with her father that he had quite forgotten the motive he had in first declaring himself. As for Carry, she was far too much surprised at her father’s change of manner, to think of speaking at all. After Frank had gone, Stephen Walker went back into the little parlour, while Carry locked the door and closed the shop for the night. When she had done this, she went into the other room, and found her father sitting in his chair with his head bent down, and his empty pipe, which he had mechanically taken down, lying across his knees. Carry paused a little, and then seeing that he did not raise his head, she went up to him, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said, “Who is this person? Have I been dreaming, or has this been my old father who has been talking here for the last hour?” For more than a minute her father did not answer. His fingers played nervously, with his pipe; then he looked up and said, hurriedly,— “No, Carry, no. It was not your old father who was speaking then. Not his real self, but quite another being. It was one who might have been me, but not myself as I am. No, no, child, don’t think it, don’t think it.” And he moved his hands nervously, as if to wipe away the thought.