So they drove out together, all three of them. The Squire was unusually silent, but did not otherwise seem different from his ordinary mood, and neither Tom nor Jane was much inclined for talking. On the road they found a child of six, a little girl who had wandered away from home and lost herself, who was sitting by the roadside crying bitterly. The Squire would have the child on his knee, although she was neither very neatly dressed nor very pretty. He kissed her, and soothed away her tears, and made her laugh, and found out where she lived. Then, in a little while, still sitting on his knee, she fell asleep, and the old man wrapped the thickest rug around her, and sheltered her from the cold as tenderly as though she had been his own child. And when the girl’s mother was found, and the girl herself had to be given up, he made her kiss him, and put half-a-crown into her hand, and promised to call and see her in a day or two. Tom, watching him narrowly all the time, said to himself, “I don’t understand him at all to-day. I thought my news would have overwhelmed him, but it seems to have had far less effect upon him than it had upon me. I’m fairly puzzled.” But there are some troubles so overwhelming that, for a time at least, they numb and deaden the feelings by their very intensity. All the more painful is the after-waking. “I think, dear, that I will go and lie down for a little while,” said the Squire, when they had reached home. “You will wake me up in time for dinner.” But there was Blenkinsop, his steward, waiting by appointment, who wanted his signature to the renewal of a lease. “Yes, yes, to be sure, Blenkinsop,” said he Squire, in his old business-like way, as he sat down at his writing-table and spread out the paper before him and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he paused. “Just your name, sir, nothing more—on that line,” said the steward, deferentially, marking the place with his finger. “Just so, Blenkinsop, just so,” said the Squire, tremulously. “But what is my name? Just for the moment I don’t seem as if I could recollect it.” A look of horror flashed from Jane’s eyes into the eyes of Tom. She was by her father’s side in a moment. He looked helplessly up at her, and tried to smile, but his lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes. “What is it, dear?” she said, as she stooped and pressed her lips to his forehead. “I want to sign this lease, and for the life of me I can’t recollect my own name.” “Titus Culpepper, dear,” she whispered in his ear. “Of course. What an idiot I must be!” he exclaimed with a laugh, as he dashed off the name in his usual rapid style, and ended with a bigger flourish than usual. “Won’t you go to bed, papa?” said Jane, insinuatingly, as soon as Blenkinsop was gone. “You will rest so much better there, you know.” “Go to bed at this time of day, indeed! What are you thinking about? No, I’ll just have a little snooze on the sofa—nothing more. And be sure you wake me up in time for dinner.”