He did not give his arm to Helen Barham as they walked, but held a thick staff in his right hand, with which he steadied his steps, and strove to give himself the appearance of youthful firmness. He had shewn to Helen Barham so much kindness and courtesy since her arrival, however, that she would have been very willing to pass over the want of any small attention, even had she perceived it, which certainly she did not; and, walking on beside him, with her bonnet loosely thrown on, her rich hair clustering round her beautiful face, a look of thoughtful sadness in her dark bright eyes, and a somewhat listless grace in all her movement, very different from the wild buoyancy of her step before she knew Morley Ernstein, she listened to the old lawyer's questions, and gave him true and simple answers, with little or no reservation, for he did not touch upon any of those points where she might have felt some difficulty in framing her reply. "And so," said old Carr, "your brother is seventeen years of age." "Nearly eighteen," replied Helen; "his birthday is in December." "A cold month," said the lawyer--"mine is in October. And so you, left him in London?" "Yes," replied Helen, "but he was very speedily to sail for the West Indies." The old man started--"Sail for the West Indies!" he exclaimed. "Sail for the West Indies! That is very unfortunate. What could make him think of such a thing as that?--that is very unfortunate, indeed!" "Perhaps not so much as you imagine," said Helen, colouring, and determined to meet the point at once, with the general truth, lest she should be cross-questioned in regard to the particulars. "My poor brother had got into very bad society, I am sorry to say, and some kind and generous friends have obtained for him a small post in one of those colonies." "He must come back--he must come back!" said the old lawyer. "I was just going to bid you invite him down here. Do you think he is gone? Are you sure he is sailed?" "By this time he certainly is," replied Helen. "In your kind daughter's letter, which I received two or three days ago, she informed me of the day that he was to sail, and enclosed to me a letter from himself, confirming the same tidings, and bidding me write to him at Deal, as that would be the last opportunity of communicating with him ere his departure. I wrote yesterday, accordingly." "That is very unlucky," said the old man, "and now the post is gone out. He must come back--he must come back!" "Nay," answered, Helen, somewhat surprised, and, to say the truth, thinking the old gentleman verging towards dotage. "It will be better for him, I believe, to stay where he is. You know that he has no means of gaining his bread in England, and there at least he has a provision."