Mr. Wesden, before retiring from business, had left strict orders with Mattie to be the last to go round the house, and see, in particular, to the gas burners, and the bolts which Ann Packet was continually leaving unfastened, and had once received warning for in Mr. Wesden's time. Mattie had injunctions to see to the drawing-room burners as well; to wait to an hour however late for the Hinchford exit. This waiting up became a serious matter when Sidney Hinchford remained in the drawing-room till the small hours of the morning, and brooded over his papers, with which one table or another was invariably strewn. Mattie, a young woman of business, who did a fair day's work, and rose early, ventured to remonstrate at last; it was intrenching beyond her province, but she made the plunge in a manner very nervous and new to her--in a manner that even confused herself a little. He brought the remonstrance upon himself by coming down into the shop to hunt for some writing paper, which he intended to pay for in the morning, and was a little surprised to find Mattie sewing briskly in the back parlour. "Up still, Mattie!--late hours for you," he said. "Ah! and for you, too, sir." "Men can do with little rest, and I never leave one day's work for the next," said he, in that quick manner which had become habitual to him, and which appeared, to strangers, tinged with more abruptness than was really intended. "I was thinking of robbing your stationery drawer, Mattie, and lo the thief is detected in the act." "Oh! I hope you do not intend any more work to-night, sir." "Why not?" he asked, his eyes expressing a mild sort of surprise through his spectacles. "I'm waiting to see the gas out in that table-lamp." "Can't I see to it myself?" "I thought so until I found the tap in the india-rubber pipe turned full on last night." "Did you sit up last night, too?" "Mr. Wesden has always wished that I should make sure everything was safe." "But I'm busy just now; you mustn't be a slave as well as myself." "I hope you're not a slave, Mr. Sidney," said Mattie, assuming that half-familiar style of conversation which was natural to her with her two old friends, and which always escaped in spite of of her, "or that you will not keep one much longer, for it's not improving your looks, I can tell you." "_You_ can tell me," said Sidney; "well, what's the matter with my looks, Mattie?" Mattie looked steadily at him. "You're paler than you used to be," she said after a while; "you're not like yourself; you've something on your mind." Sidney frowned, rubbed his hair up the wrong way, after his father's fashion, cleared off suddenly and then laughed. "Who hasn't?" was his reply. "There's nothing which can't easily be got over, or my name isn't Mattie," said our heroine, with great firmness. She was full of her one reason for all this thought on his side, and the confusion and perplexity on Harriet's, and she delivered her hint emphatically.