"When he can get money or beg liquor. I feel mean, when he stops me in the road, to borrow a fourpence. 'Ah, Will!' he says, 'thriving and likely as when you drove your master's carriage after his bride--your late lamented mistis! You don't happen to have a fourpence in your pocket, my boy? Unfortunately, I'm out of change. Thank you, my fine fellow--I'll remember you my lad!' I can't deny him, Mistis. He knowed your father well, when they were both young men--a smart, handsome gentleman he was! and to think!" "And to see!" thought Ida, as the house peeped through the trees, with unglazed windows, crumbling chimney, and sunken roof. It was presented to him by her father--a neat, comfortable cottage. His wife died of a broken heart; the children were saved from starvation and freezing, times without number, by her mother. How they subsisted now, was an impenetrable mystery; for the father never did a stroke of work, and loafed around the country, thrusting himself upon the hospitality of those with whom he had associated in former years, wearing his welcome--not threadbare, but into shreds, before he let go. In a beggar's garb, and soliciting alms from the slaves of his old companions, he retained the boastful swagger and ornate language which earned for him, in youth, the soubriquet of "Pompous Pinely." The eldest daughter was sitting upon the door-step, dressed almost in tatters; her matted hair twisted up with a tinsel comb--a gift from her father, in a generously drunken fit; and the remnants of a pair of silk stockings hanging about a neatly turned foot and ankle. Her face was clean; and Ida could not but observe its beauty, as she blushed and smiled an embarrassed welcome. "You have not forgotten me, Laura; but you have grown so, I scarcely knew you. Are you all well?" "Except papa, who has a headache. Walk in." "No, thank you. It is pleasant out here." She seated herself upon a block beside the door. "Where are the children?" "Gone to look for strawberries." "Isn't it too early for them?" "I'm afraid so--but they wanted some so badly." Ida suspected, from her stammering, that more substantial food would have been as acceptable. "I came partly on business, Laura," she hastened to say, apprehending an irruption from the interior. "I am trying to get up a school in the neighborhood, to be taught at Sunnybank, by a friend of mine--" "Miss Ross! do I in truth, have the felicity?" Ida groaned in spirit. "The softened image of my ever lamented friend!" continued the inebriate, whose headache was easily accounted for. Putting his hand to his heart, he heaved a profound sigh. "Ah! my dear young lady! may you have the inheritance of his transcendant virtues, as of his faultless physiognomy! Laura, my daughter--have you offered our guest refreshments?" "Excuse me, sir! I have not time to partake of them. I was apologising to Laura for my first visit being a business call."