"Don't talk so, Digby--I don't like it. You are younger than I am--nothing more disagreeable than these gloomy views of things. You have got enough to live upon, you say--at least so I understand you. I am very glad to hear it; and, indeed, I could not assist you, so many claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby." "Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his hands, and with feverish energy, "I am a suppliant, not for myself, but my child! I have but one--only one--a girl. She has been so good to me. She will cost you little. Take her when I die; promise her a shelter--a home. I ask no more. You are my nearest relative. I have no other to look to. You have no children of your own. She will be a blessing to you, as she has been all upon earth to me!" If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its color at this appeal. "The man's mad," he said at last, with a tone of astonishment that almost concealed his wrath, "stark mad! I take his child!--lodge and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''Tis a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children--never make both ends meet.' Child--the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world--a child!" "She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh, Colonel, let me see your wife. _Her_ heart I can touch--she is a woman." Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could not have put into his lips. Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the Colonel's grand connections! The Colonel would never have been his own man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in! And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have learned already that a Digby was with her husband--she might be actually dressing to receive him worthily--there was not a moment to lose.