“Mamma, the right thing would be, if you care about me, at least, to let poor Mr. Gus come in, and thank him for saving my life. Oh, let him come in, mamma! How could he help being older than Paul? I dare say he would rather have been younger if he could; and I am sure by what he says he would give Paul anything--anything! to make it up to him, and to make friends with you. He says how miserable he would be if you left him here all alone. He could not bear to be down here thinking he had turned us out. Oh, if you had only seen him! he looked as if he could cry--Ask Marie. And he wanted to know if he might speak to Alice, if Alice would speak for him. But I said I didn’t think it, because Paul was Alice’s particular brother, and she could not bear anything that was hard upon him; and then he said,” cried Bell, with unconscious embellishment, “‘You are my two little sisters, oh, go and plead for me! Say I will do anything--anything--whatever she pleases.’ Oh mamma! who could say more than that? He has nobody belonging to him, unless we will let him belong to us. He is a poor little gentleman, not young, nor nice-looking, nor clever, nor anything. And, mamma, he is a little--or more than a little, a great deal--_very_ like poor papa. Oh!” cried Bell, breaking off with a suppressed shriek, as a hand suddenly was laid upon her shoulder. Nobody had observed him coming in. A light little man, with a soft step, and soft unobtrusive shoes that never had creaked in the course of their existence, upon a soft Turkey carpet, makes very little sound as he moves. He had got tired waiting outside, and the doors were open, and Mr. Gus had never been shy. He had walked straight in, guided by their voices; and the very fact that he had thus made his way within those curtains into this sanctuary seemed to give him at once a footing in the place. He put his hand upon Bell’s shoulder, and, though he was not much taller than she was, made a very respectful bow to Lady Markham over her head. “I thought I might take the liberty to come in and speak for myself, Lady Markham,” he said. There was a flutter of his eyelids, giving that sidelong glance round him, which was the only thing that betrayed Gus’s consciousness that the place to which “he had taken the liberty” of coming in was his own. “My little sisters” (he put his other hand upon the shoulder of Marie, who was much consoled at thus being brought back out of the cold into which Bell’s superior gifts invariably sentenced her), “My little sisters can speak better for me than I can do; and won’t you take me in for the sake of the little things who have always been my friends? It is not my fault that this all came upon you as a surprise. Don’t you think it would be better for everybody--for the children, and for my poor father’s memory, and all, if you will just put up with having me in the house?” Lady Markham grew very pale. She made a great effort, standing up to do it.