“How happens that? I’m afraid you have displeased Mr. De la Mare?” “Mr. who, please, sir?” “Mr. De la Mare, the hospital governor. You don’t know who he is? How came you here, then?” Malet had seen more of the world than Aaron. He suggested that the beggar might have come over in some of the oyster vessels from Kent,— perhaps even from London; and that he might never have set foot in St. Heliers. Would he get into the hospital among the blind? Aaron would take him to St. Heliers the next morning, and try to procure him admission. Stephen did not exactly wish this. He could find his way about, and did not like being shut up. If the gentleman would only bestow a little charity, that was all he asked;—by charity, he meant a little money for present use. “But what will you do when it is gone?” asked Aaron. “You cannot work, I suppose, without the use of your sight.” Stephen (for so the beggar called himself) had not been able to do a stroke of work these ten years. He trusted to the charitable and humane to take care of him. “But you will not take their charity. You refuse the hospital! I don’t see what you would have.” “He would live by begging, I dare say,” observed Malet, by way of elucidation. “What! by asking every day for bread! I never heard of such a thing.” Charles Malet had once been told that this was a very common thing in England. Besides the number of poor who were admitted into charitable houses, like those at St. Heliers, there were many who did not know, any morning of the year, where they should rest at night. Aaron thought this a miserable lot; but Stephen the beggar seemed wonderfully cheerful under it. He did not look ashamed, as a native would have done, of his being only half-clothed;—perhaps the not seeing his tatters had something to do with this. He had certainly been humming a tune, as he ambled along, when the young men were approaching him; and even now, though he spoke of hunger, he seemed ready to break out into singing or joking in the intervals of the piteous looks he assumed. Aaron, as a matter of course, took him home, but felt rather uncomfortable in doing so. He was afraid that his father might be displeased if it should turn out that the beggar was playing off a hoax; and that his mother might be alarmed if Stephen should prove a halfwit, or to be under a spell; and Aaron could scarcely doubt the one or the other to be the case. He took Stephen by the hand, however, and led him on; not failing to remark how marvellously his charge happened to escape hurting his ill-shod feet against the large sharp stones which lay in the road.