Then it struck him that perhaps Frank had been fed too much, and he shook his head gravely over such a trying situation as that. Frank was lamenting still--more gently, but in a remarkably persevering way. "He must want something," Grantley concluded; and his eye fell on a cup which stood just within the fender. He stooped down and stuck his finger into it, and found it half-full of a warm, thick, semi-liquid stuff. "Got it!" he said in lively triumph, picking up the cup and holding it to Frank's lips. The child sucked it up. "Well, he likes it anyhow; that's something. I hope it won't kill him!" mused Grantley, as he gently drew the cup away from the tenacious little fingers. Frank stuck one of the fingers in his mouth, stopped crying, and in an instant, seemingly, was sound asleep. Grantley got him into a position that he guessed would be comfortable, and lay back in the chair, nursing him on his knees. In half an hour Mrs. Mumple came in and found them both sound asleep in front of the fire. She darted to them, and shook Grantley by the shoulder. He opened his eyes with a start. "My gracious, you might have dropped him!" "Not a bit of it! Look how he's holding on!" He showed the little hand clenched tightly round his forefinger. "He could hang like that, I believe!" "Hang indeed!" muttered Mrs. Mumple resentfully. "Give him to me, Mr. Imason." "Oh, by all means! But, by Jove, he doesn't want to go, you know!" He did not want to go, apparently, and Grantley was quite triumphant about it. Mrs. Mumple was merely cross, and grumbled all the time till she got the little fingers unlaced and Frank safe in his cot again. "It's a mercy he didn't fall into the fire," she kept repeating, with a lively and aggressive thankfulness for escape from a danger excessively remote. But she made Grantley ashamed of not having thought of it. At last she spoke of Sibylla. "She's warm and comfortable and sleeping now, poor lamb!" she said. "It's time we all were," said Grantley, making for the door. "You won't disturb her, Mr. Imason?" He turned round to her, smiling. "No," he said. Mrs. Mumple moved her fat shoulders in a helpless shrug. She had made out nothing about the matter; she was clear only that Sibylla had somehow been disgracefully ill-used, and that Frank might very well have fallen into the fire. Of these two things she was unalterably convinced. But she spoke of one of them only; the other was declared in her hostile eyes.