He laughed aloud at that and said: “You are very complimentary, but I’ll forgive you for once, and go on with my story, which was interrupted at the point where I received the photograph, which astonished me so much that I determined to come home and see if it was correct. And, as you know, I came, and wishing to surprise you gave no warning of my coming, but hunted up your lodgings, and felt utterly confounded when I was ushered into this little back third floor room, and was told you had occupied it for years, and not only that, but that you gave music lessons for a living, and had gone out to hunt up scholars. I don’t think I quite swore, but I did tear round a little, and bade the woman make up a roaring fire against your return, and told her I was going to dine with you. You ought to have seen her twist her apron, and heard her stammer and hesitate as she told me ‘Miss Burton didn’t mostly have dinners nowadays;’ meaning, of course, that you couldn’t afford it. I believe I did say d——, with a dash, under my breath, but I gave her a sovereign, and told her to get up the best dinner possible for the time, for I was hungry as forty bears. She courtesied almost to the floor and departed, but upon my soul I believe they think me a burglar or something dreadful, for one or the other of them has been on this floor watching me slyly to see that I was not rummaging your things.” While he talked I was trying to dry my wet boots which, like Lady Darinda, he spied at last and exclaimed, “Why, child, how wet your boots are. Why do you not change them? You will surely take cold. Go now and do it.” I did not tell him they were all I had, but he must have guessed it from my manner, and looking sharply at me as if he would wring the truth from me, he said: “Norah, are these your only boots?” “Yes, Tom, they are,” and my lip quivered a little, while he stalked up and down the room, knocking over a chair with his big overcoat, and nearly upsetting a stand of plants. I think I felt my poverty more at that moment than I had ever done before, but there was nothing I could say, and fortunately for us both Miss Keith just then appeared, saying dinner was ready, and asking if she should send up the soup. What a dinner it was, and Tom did ample justice to it, until suddenly, remembering himself, he said: “By the way, I must be moderate here, for I have another dinner to eat to-night: one, too, where the fatted calf has been killed.” Up to this point I had not once thought of Miss Elliston since I found Tom sitting in my room, but now I remembered the handsome dinner table seen through the windows of No. — Grosvenor Square, and felt sure it was to that table Tom had been bidden as a guest; but I would not ask him, and he continued: