*IN THE CRESCENT.* This was the first time Jim had met Dora all by herself without the stronghold--No. 9, to wit. And there he had found few opportunities to say anything to her that was not formal and commonplace; indeed, their intercourse, with watching eyes and listening ears about them, had been (to Jim, at any rate) of a gallingly circumscribed character. It is poor satisfaction, when the heart is hungry, to look into the eyes one loves, and remark that it is colder than it was yesterday; your lover is kept on conversation’s shortest commons when, though burning to say a thousand tender things to the one girl he holds most precious, he has, perforce, to hazard a remark to the effect that there may be rain before morning. Thus it was with Jim. He often saw Dora, but seldom spoke with her. There was that evening when she drew the course of the Rhine under his tutelage--but that was a memory by itself--a verdant oasis in the desert of verbal starvation! It may be easily imagined, therefore, how fast beat Jim’s heart when he found himself absolutely alone--and unwatched--with Dora Maybury. "Have you too been listening to the organ?" he asked. "Yes," said Dora, "I was there when you came up. I have been shopping. Frank came out with me, but disappeared." Jim devoutly hoped that Frank would not reappear. Dora was carrying a heavy marketing-net--the shops keep open late in Blackfriars Road--and Jim promptly possessed himself of this. "Frank ought to have been carrying it," explained Dora, as they walked down the by-street, "but," she added, "you know what brothers are!" "I have heard accounts of them," said Jim, "but can’t speak from experience, as I haven’t any." "Nor sisters?" "Nor sisters either," said Jim; "nobody, in fact, but a grandfather." "Dear me!" said Dora, "what a very lonely boy you must have been! I suppose your grandfather is very fond of you?" "I think he has a sort of mild affection for me," said Jim, "but unfortunately I offended him when I--er--when I was put on _The Total Abstainers_ black list." Dora seemed interested. "And what did he do?" she inquired. "He behaved in a manner that was not even mildly affectionate." "And you don’t see him now?" Jim admitted that that was so. "But perhaps he will make it up at Christmas-time," suggested Dora. "He ought to." Jim shook his head. "My grandfather is not the sort of man to do anything because he ought to." "Oh, I hope he will," said Dora; "it must be so wretched for you--having nobody." "You are very kind," said Jim, his voice suddenly changing. "But surely," said Dora, quickly, "anybody would be sorry for a man who had nobody in the world to care for him." Jim made no rejoinder. So Dora, meaning only to make him feel that she sympathised with his position, said again that she hoped all would be right between him and his grandfather by the time Christmas came.