Laurence Desmond understood the meaning of that look, and replied to its appeal. “If any influence of mine can get you the engagement you want, you shall not be long without it,” he said, kindly. “I don’t think you’ll find any Mrs. M’Grudders at the Pall Mall or the Terence.” Mr. Alford came in while Laurence was saying this. He was an elderly man, and he looked older than he was, by reason of the whiteness of his straggling locks, and the stooping attitude which had become habitual to his tall frame. He was a man who bore upon him the unmistakeable stamp of gentle blood--a man whose good breeding no shabbiness of attire could disguise; and it must be confessed that he was very shabby. “My dear Desmond,” he cried, delighted to recognize his old pupil, “this is more than kind! I expected kindness from you, but not such promptitude as this.” “I should be very ungrateful if I were otherwise than prompt, when I remember how well you pulled me through when I was reading for ‘Greats’ twelve years ago,” answered Laurence, heartily. “Miss Alford and I have renewed our old acquaintance, and have become very confidential. I have pledged myself to do my uttermost on her behalf, and if a West-end engagement is her supreme desire, I think I can promise to gratify her wishes through my kind friend Hartstone, of the Theatre Royal, Pall Mall. But I cannot promise to secure her such characters as Pauline or Ophelia. Hartstone is one of the best fellows in Christendom, but he will think he does a good deal for friendship if he gives Miss Lucy some pretty little young-ladylike part in a _lever du rideau_.” And hereupon Miss Alford murmured that to appear at the Pall Mall would be the honour and delight of her existence, however insignificant the character she might be permitted to perform. After this Mr. Desmond and his old tutor entered upon a very pleasant conversation about the coaching days at Henley, and the three jolly young fellows who had boated and read with Laurence at the Henley villa. “Poor Max Waldon was ploughed,” said the editor. “He was asked who Saul was. ‘Which Saul?’ asked Max, in that sweetly calm way of his; ‘Saul of Tarsus?’ ‘No, sir; King Saul,’ replied the examiner, sternly. ‘Oh,’ said Max, ‘he was not a bad sort of fellow, only he had a nasty trick of throwing javelins at one.’ And they ploughed him; but he is doing wonders at the Equity bar, notwithstanding. Lawsley died at Pau the year after he took his degree; and I fear the ’Varsity training and pedestrianism had something to do with the decline that carried him off.” The reminiscences of the Long Vacation seemed by no means unpleasant to Lucy Alford. She took up her work--it was Pauline’s bridal veil that she was patching and darning for the evening’s performance--and sat quietly by while her father and his pupil talked; but every now and then her face kindled, and she looked up with a smile that meant, “I too remember that.”