'You will tell Mollie all about me, will you not, Miss Ross?' Kester exclaimed excitedly. 'Tell her I am going to St. Paul's, and the National Gallery, and the British Museum. Fred Somers is going to pilot me about, as Captain Burnett has so much to do. Do you know Fred Somers, Miss Ross? He seems a nice sort of fellow.' Oh yes, Audrey knew all about Fred Somers. He was another _protege_ of Michael's; indeed, the whole Somers family considered themselves indebted to Captain Burnett. Fred's father was only a City clerk, and at one time his head had been very much below water. He was a good, weak sort of man; but he had not sufficient backbone, and when the tide sat dead against him he lost courage. 'The man will die,' said the doctor. 'He has no stamina; he simply offers no resistance to the disease that is carrying him off. You should cheer him up a bit, Mrs. Somers--crying never mended a sick man yet.' For he was the parish doctor, and a little rough in his ways. 'A man has no right to lose courage and to show the white feather when he has a wife and six children depending on him,' said Michael. Some chance--or rather say some providential arrangement--had brought him across their threshold. Michael came across all sorts of people in his London life, and, though his acquaintance among City clerks was rather limited, he had known Mr. Somers slightly. When Michael stepped up to that sick-bed with that wholesome rebuke on his tongue, but his heart very full of sympathy for the stricken man, Robert Somers' difficulties were practically over. The debts that were chafing the life out of him--debts incurred by sickness, by a hundred little disasters--were paid out of Michael's small means; and, despite his doctor's prophecy, Robert Somers rose from his bed a braver, stronger man. Michael never lost interest in the family. They would always be pinched and struggling, he knew--a City clerkship is not an El Dorado of riches, and growing boys and girls have to be clothed and educated. Michael took the eldest boy, Fred, under his wing--by some means or other he got him into Christ's Hospital. How Fred's little sisters admired those yellow stockings!--though it may be doubted whether they were not too warm a colour for Fred's private taste. Fred was a Grecian by this time--a big strapping fellow he looked beside Kester--with a freckled, intelligent face and a mop of dark hair. He was a great favourite of Audrey's, and she had once induced her mother to let him spend a fortnight at Woodcote. Dr. Ross also took a kindly interest in him. 'Fred will make his mark one day. You are right, Michael,' he observed. 'He has plenty of brains under that rough thatch of his. He will shoulder his way through the world. Christ's Hospital has turned out many a fine scholar, and Fred does not mean to be behind them.' Audrey bade good-bye to Michael somewhat reluctantly.