Mattie departed, and the old gentleman blew at invisibility in the air once more. "How that girl does talk!--it is her one fault--loquacity. If she can only find a listener, she's happy. And yet, when I come to consider it, that girl's always happy--for she's thankful and content. And things are coming nicely round, she says--well, I hope so!" CHAPTER VIII. SIDNEY STATES HIS INTENTIONS. Mr. Wesden, if not the first person up in the house, was at least the first person who superintended business in the morning. For years that little shop had been opened punctually at six A.M. When the boy had not arrived to take down the shutters, Mr. Wesden lowered them himself. Tradesfolk over the way, early mechanics sallying forth to work from the back streets adjacent, the policeman on duty, the milkboy, and the woman with the watercresses, knew when it was six o'clock in Great Suffolk Street by the opening of Mr. Wesden's shop. Mr. Wesden prided himself upon this punctuality, and not even to Mattie would he entrust the duties of commencing the labours of the day, despite the inflexibility of his back after a night's "_rest_." Sidney Hinchford, who knew Mr. Wesden's habits, therefore found no difficulty in meeting with that gentleman at five minutes past the early hour mentioned. "Good morning, Mr. Wesden." "Good morning, Sidney." Mr. Wesden was sitting behind his counter, in business position, ready for customers; the morning papers had not come in from the agent--he had given up of late years fetching them from the office himself--and there was not much to distract him from full attention to all that Sidney had to communicate. "I thought I should find you handy for a serious bit of talk, sir." Mr. Wesden looked at him, and his face assumed a degree of extra gravity. Sidney Hinchford had got into debt with his tailor, and wished to borrow a few pounds "on the quiet." "I suppose Harriet told you last night what happened?" "Not all that happened, I fancy." "Then she waited for me, possibly," he said, a little taken aback nevertheless, "or told her mother. Well, you see, to make a long story short, Mr. Wesden, I have taken the liberty of falling in love with your daughter, as was natural and to be expected, and I have come down early this morning to tell you plainly that that's the state of my feelings, and that if you have anything to say against it or me, why you can clap on the extinguisher, and no one a bit the wiser." Mr. Wesden was a man who never showed his surprise by anything more than an intenser stare than usual; he sat looking stolidly at Sidney Hinchford, who leaned over the counter with flushed cheeks and earnest eyes, surveying him through his glasses.