"Hold your tongue, Mother Butter," cried Tom Brabazon, laughing as if he had not a care in life. "You have been in scrapes yourself before this, I'll lay. Mind you make me a plum-pudding to-morrow; I've not tasted a piece of one yet. Perhaps you'll introduce this gentleman to me, Emma." And she obeyed mechanically. In the blow the night had brought, she felt utterly bewildered. "My unfortunate brother, Thomas Brabazon; Mr. Henry." Mr. Henry acknowledged the introduction slightly; and took up his hat to walk home with Miss Brabazon. She begged him not to take the trouble, but he quietly insisted, and they went out together. "Is this the same that you have seen near the college?" she asked, as they went along. "It is." "Ah, yes; I only inquired to see if you remembered him. He denies, most positively, having entered the study that night; and when I spoke of the pencil, he apparently did not know what I meant. He had written a letter to papa, asking for some trifling temporary assistance, intending to send it in and wait for the answer. But he saw the front sitting-rooms were in darkness, and went round, fearing we were out, to see if the back ones were. That is what he says. We were out, you know, as the want of light showed him, and he returned to London, and was arrested before he could come again. When I mentioned the pencil, he asked whether I thought he had become worse than a common thief to touch _that_. I don't think he took it." "But why have used an evasion to me—that he was looking for the entrance to the college?" returned Mr. Henry. "He fears an enemy in every person he meets, and I suppose wished to pass himself off as a stranger. Mr. Henry, I must rely on you not to betray his sojourn at your house." "Betray him! You little know me. Anything in the world I can do for him, or for you, or for Dr. Brabazon, in this painful emergency, I shall only be too happy to do, faithfully and truly." "You see now," she said, with a faint smile, "that we have too much trouble of our own to be severe upon others. Every bit of secret pride has been taken out of us, and papa's hair is grey before its time. He is the eldest son." "The eldest son?" "Yes, the oldest of us all. He went wrong first of all at Oxford, and instead of retrieving his position, or allowing it to be retrieved for him, as others do who get into debt there, he went on from bad to worse. Good night, Mr. Henry."