The boy had quite an attraction for Mrs. Routh, who would smile at him when she passed him in the street, nod pleasantly to him occasionally from her window, when his business or pleasure led him to lounge past the house before she had left her bedroom of a morning, and who frequently sent him of errands, for the doing of which she rewarded him with a liberality which appeared to him astounding munificence. Mr. James Swain was of a temperament to feel kindness, neglected street-boy though he was, and he had been wonderfully impressed by the womanly compassion which had spoken to him in Harriet's gentle tones on the morning of their first meeting, and had looked out of all the trouble and foreboding in her blue eyes. His interest in the Routh household, however, antedated that event, and received not only an additional access, but a fresh colouring from it, and an acute observer, supposing one to exist for whom so mean a matter as the mental condition of a street-boy, very vulgar indeed, and without a particle of sentimental interest about him, should possess any attraction, would have discerned that a struggle of some sort was going on in the mind of the frequenter of South Molton-street, and seeker of odd jobs. Routh, also, was not without interest for Jim Swain. Perhaps he watched him even more closely than he watched Harriet, but if he did, it was with totally different feelings. Routh had considerable powers of self-command, and could always be civil and apparently good-tempered, no matter what his real humour might be, when it accorded with his interests to be so. But he was not a man to treat inferiors with courtesy, or to refrain from rudeness and brutality where they were safe, and unlikely to do him any discredit. Consequently, servants and other recipients of the outpourings of his temper hated him with a vivid cordiality. Jim, the street-boy, had been employed by him occasionally, and had formed, apart from certain other knowledge he had gained concerning Mr. Stewart Routh, the worst opinion of that gentleman's disposition and character. "He's a bad 'un, anyhow," the boy muttered, as he watched Mr. Routh letting himself into the house he inhabited with his latch-key, having previously taken a handful of letters from the postman at the door. "An ill-lookin' dog, too. Scowled at the letters as if he was a-goin' to eat 'em. P'raps they're love letters. I shouldn't wonder, now, as the lady is a pinin' for some 'un else, and he's jealous, and gets hold on all the letters to catch her out."