A ringing bell summoned Charles away, and, quite forgetful of the remainder of her breakfast, Mrs Lower sat thinking of her old master in his present character of the facsimile of a ghost in a black-velvet cap and a dressing-gown, thinking of the changes in the family, wondering, too, what had become of the doctor's daughter, Agnes; but above all, of the shabby-looking elderly man whom she always spoke of as "Master Sep." Volume One, Chapter XIV. MATT MAKES A DISCOVERY. People about Lincoln's-inn began in these days to turn their heads and look after the shabbily-dressed old printer, who passed them to stop every now and then at a lamp-post, and then go on again, shaking his head like an anglicised mandarin, for old Matt was sorely troubled about the state of affairs in Bennett's-rents. At times he would be for making a confidant of Mr Sterne, and asking his advice and guidance, but somehow there always seemed a certain amount of suspicion on either side, and Matt and the curate maintained a gap between them which neither attempted to cross. But the old man was after all not unhappy, for he was enjoying that supreme pleasure which fills the heart, making it swell almost painfully--that pleasure which never satiates, while it is like the seed of the parable cast into the ground, some may be blighted, some trampled down, but there are always certain grains which flourish and give to the sower a hundredfold of grain in return. Old Matt was enjoying the pleasure of doing good and helping a fellow-man in distress. It may be questioned whether the old man's path was ever easier or more brightly irradiated than during his connection with the Hardons. True, his income was of the very smallest; but then it is not the extent of a man's income that gives him pleasure in this life, but the secret of having all the possible enjoyment out of it. Some with wealth seek for this enjoyment after a wrong fashion, and find only bitterness, while in the homes of poverty joy often finds an abiding-place. Septimus Hardon often wondered afterwards how they had managed to live in this time of trouble; but one way and another the days passed by. Now he would make a few shillings by his copying, then there was Lucy's work, while, in spite of remonstrances, old Matt persisted in enjoying his income after his own fashion, playing his little miserable farces to his own satisfaction, and then grinning to himself over the little bits of deceit. He never stopped, shrewd as he was, to ask himself whether his subterfuges were not of the most transparent; they gained him his end, and he considered that it was a novel and a neat way of managing the matter, when a hint at lending money would have given offence.