Mr. Morton walked rapidly through the still, moon-lit streets, till he reached the inn. A club was held that night in one of the rooms below; and as he crossed the threshold, the sound of “hip-hip-hurrah!” mingled with the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his entrance. He was a stiff, sober, respectable man,--a man who, except at elections--he was a great politician--mixed in none of the revels of his more boisterous townsmen. The sounds, the spot, were ungenial to him. He paused, and the colour of shame rose to his brow. He was ashamed to be there--ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring sister. A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments, crossed his path with a tray full of glasses. “There’s a lady come by the Telegraph?” “Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton.” Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name. “My wife’s right,” he muttered. “After all, this is more unpleasant than I thought for.” The slight stairs shook under his hasty tread. He opened the door of No. 2, and that Catherine, whom he had last seen at her age of gay sixteen, radiant with bloom, and, but for her air of pride, the model for a Hebe,--that Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark hair silvered over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,--that Catherine fell upon his breast! “God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!” “Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint--you are very much changed--very. I should not have known you.” “Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from him--very--very painful: but it is right, and God’s will be done.” She turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of the other upon her lips--lips that smiled then--she whispered,--“We will not wake him, he is so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you had seen him.” And there slept poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow; the natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so innocent and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if never broken by a sigh. Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes.