“The world has not used me too well, Desmond, as you must perceive,” he said; “and yet I have worked my hardest. I have a couple of tragedies in my desk that might conduce to the revival of original dramatic literature in this country; but the ignorance and prejudice of theatrical managers are not easily overcome. I look to my daughter’s genius to elevate the English stage. She is a star, my dear Desmond--a newly-risen star; but one that will shine far and wide before long, if she has a chance. Go and see her to-night at the Oxford, and you will find that her poor old father does not exaggerate her merits.” “Yes, I will go,” answered Laurence, smiling at the old man’s enthusiasm. “You must let me give you this, Alford, to--to make things a little pleasanter while you stay in town, for ‘auld lang syne.’” It was a cheque for twenty pounds in his friend’s favour, which Mr. Desmond contrived to crush into the old man’s hand as he said this. He was gone before Tristram Alford could find time to thank him or remonstrate with him; but the help thus offered by friendship was too sweet to be rejected by pride, nor was Tristram Alford a man who had ever cherished that particular sin amongst the deadly seven. There were tears--grateful tears--in the old man’s eyes when he went back to his daughter. “That noble-hearted fellow has given me twenty pounds, Lucy,” he said; “we can rub on comfortably for the next six weeks.” To “rub on comfortably” had been Mr. Alford’s highest notion of financial prosperity for the last thirty years. He was a man upon whom the burden of youthful debts, the penalties of juvenile indiscretion, had pressed so heavily as to frustrate every attempt at progress in the race of life. Poor at school, poor at college, poor in youth, and poor in middle age, Tristram Alford had come at last to accept Poverty as a fellow-traveller, whose companionship must needs be endured to the end of the troublesome journey. The utmost he asked of Providence was a brief interval of rest and refreshment at some wayside inn, while his companion of the chain waited for him at the door. CHAPTER XIV. IN THE GREEN-ROOM. IT happened that the day on which Mr. Desmond paid his visit to Paul’s Terrace, Islington, was a day unmarked by any particular engagement. There had been a time when he was only too glad to snatch such a day for a quiet afternoon at the Hampton villa; but he no longer felt the same alacrity when the occasion offered itself. He was still fully alive to the fact that Mrs. Jerningham was one of the handsomest and most elegant women he had ever seen, and that to be preferred by her was an honour; but to be submitted to the slow torture of the domestic inquisition is none the less painful because the inquisitor-in-chief is a beautiful woman, from whose fair lips the victim had hoped to hear sweet words instead of captious questionings and ungenerous reproaches.