“Rabbett,” says he, private and confidential, “he doesn’t like me and I don’t like him, and I wish he wasn’t so fond of Rose. I never did him any harm, you know, Rabbett.” Natural enough, his spirit is hurt about it, and he takes it a bit hard. But he never says much about it, until one night he comes to me, and I sees he is wonderful quiet, and after a while I made bold to ask what ails him. And the minute I asks him I sees, by the look in his eyes, that what ails him is something uncommon. “It’s something about Rose,” he says, “and it’s something about Captain Roscoe.” A slight huskiness comes in my throat, as makes it necessary for me to clear it. “Oh!” I says. “Indeed, sir?” “Yes,” he answers. “As I was coming here I passed him, standing at the corner of the street with a gentleman, and they were both talking aloud, Rabbett, and laughing. And they were talking about Rose.” Knowing the man so well, and having heard so much of his villany, my blood fairly boiled at the thought of what he might have been saying; but I made up my mind to speak quietly. “Did you hear what they said, sir?” I asked. “Are you sure it was her they were speaking of?” “Yes,” says he, “sure, for I heard the gentleman say, ‘What? Pretty Rose Dalgetty?’ And then Roscoe answered, ‘Even she might get tiresome.’ And they both laughed. Rabbett”—and he turned his troubled, questioning boy’s face to me, as if he was just awakening to some sort of bewildered fear, and wanted help—“what did he mean when he said she might get tiresome? And what made them laugh as they did? They were laughing at her—my sister Rose.” “No gentleman would have done it, sir,” I answered, not knowing what else to say. [Illustration: “MISS ROSE PUT HER HANDS ON HIS SHOULDERS”] “I know that,” he says. “But what did they mean? You are older than me, Rabbett, and perhaps you can understand more than that it was not what a gentleman would have done.” But of course I could not tell him that. If it meant nothing worse, it at least did mean as Miss Rose’s lover had so little respect for her that he could bandy her name among his companions with something like a sneer; so I tried my best to lead him away from the subject. If he’d been an ordinary kind of young gentleman, and he so very young yet, I might have managed it; but being the little fellow he was, the suspicion that his sister had been somewhat slighted stuck to him, and settled itself deep in his mind, and made him thoughtful beyond his years.