She stood before him, plainly longing to escape, her light figure almost poised for flight. Overwhelmed she was by the consciousness of the shabbiness of her school frock and worn gloves; pitilessly the sun shone on them, bringing out the poorness of their quality, and all the defects of long use and age. It shone on him almost blindingly it seemed to her; so that to look at him, so fine, so grave, so grand, as he stood before her hurt her eyes. They had met in one of the principal streets of the town; the men who passed them looked such miserable creatures, she thought, beside his tall figure. How had she the presumption to have pestered him with her degrading troubles! "Mama was in such sorrow about Bernard," she was impelled to excuse herself. "Mama wished me to ask your brother, who knew Bernard very well; but I thought it better not to trouble him. I thought it better, as you had helped me before, to ask you to help again." "It is better to come to me," he said with great gravity. "Your brother is very generous," she went on saying in her nervousness anything that came into her head. "He would have given us the money without a thought as to whether it was right or wrong. I should have felt we were taking advantage of him. It did not seem to me to be right to ask him." He wondered as he heard her how she had come to be a Day; and then he too found himself plunging into a subject he had not, a moment before, intended to mention. "I called to see you at your house, just now. I found my brother there. May I ask if he is a frequent visitor?" The small face which had been so clearly pale was suddenly like a scarlet rose. "Just lately a very frequent visitor," she said; and, in spite of her shyness, she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face. "A young man who is idle can never understand that other people are busy," he said. "I am sure that you are all too much occupied to wish to have my brother always hanging about." Deleah looked at him in silence. She understood perfectly what he meant. What was there for her to say? "I shall try and waken him to the perception that he is trespassing on valuable time, and making a bore of himself," he said; smiled to make his words acceptable, raised his hat to go on his way; yet delayed for a minute still. "In the matter of your brother, you understand, I will do what you ask." "I shall persuade mama to give up her idea of buying him off." "What is his regiment?" She told him, and that it was at Aldershot. A couple of years ago it happened to have been quartered at Brockenham. "I know several of the officers," Sir Francis remembered. "I could write to Colonel Greene about your brother. If it did him no good it couldn't do him any harm; and there is the chance that Greene would take an interest in him." Deleah said with an averted head that that would be very good of him; and making him a grave little bow hurried away. CHAPTER XXI In For It!