"Yes, to 'wait and hope,' as Monte Christo told his young friends," said Yeldham, with a very poor attempt at gaiety. "I'm off now, to engage in an interesting question about Farmer Shepperton's ten-acre meadow." During the few following days the grind which Mr. Charles Yeldham had instituted for himself, and had without interruption or question kept up for several years, received many irruptions and incursions at this period of his life, was broken in upon here, and suddenly put a stop to there, in a manner that would have annoyed any but the best-tempered and largest-hearted man in the whole world. While Robert Streightley lay ill in his bed, it was not to be expected that Charley Yeldham could remain quiet, poring over his law-papers, without running in now and then to see how his friend was getting on; whether he wanted any thing; whether the perpetual scratching of the pen disturbed him; whether the preternatural silence did not drive him mad; and other queries, such as men in rude health propose to those whom, being ill, they take to be fanciful. Then there was the doctor's visit, the consultation afterwards, the getting the sick man to acquiesce in all the necessary arrangements, the despatch of Charley's lad for the medicines, and a hundred other little performances, all of which Charley had to take part in; thus giving up his work and withdrawing himself from his desk. He did not mind so very much; for Charles Yeldham's position was now secured, and he knew that the attorneys must await his pleasure. His was no bumptious self-conceit; he had won his spurs in fairest fight and by hardest exertion, by sheer determination and indomitable energy; and he was as incapable of affecting a deprecation of his legitimate success as he would have been of swaggering before that success had been legitimately obtained. So, notwithstanding his innate love of work, he had no hesitation in tearing himself from "treadmill" to attend to his friend, whom he pitied with all his large heart, with a profound pity which had long ago buried blame out of sight. One morning, when Robert Streightley was sitting in the easy-chair at the open window looking on to the Thames, gazing, with that calm uninterested feeling which comes to us in illness, on the life below--the nursemaids and valetudinarians in the Temple Gardens; the squad of Inns-of-Court volunteers in private clothes, but carrying their rifles, being put through the mysteries of company-drill by the attendant sergeant; the steam-boats on the river, cutting in and out among the heavy barges; the distant bridges crowded with traffic, and the shore immediately in front resonant with the work of the Embankment,--as he sat, very weak in body, very anxious in mind--for no answer had as yet come to Yeldham's letter to Miss Burton--Charley Yeldham opened the door, and coming up to him, laid his hand gently on his shoulder, and asked him how he was.