‘Won’t you step in a minute, and see if he comes? It’s Mr. Mallory, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes. I did want to see him very particularly.’ ‘’Appen, if you were to sit you down a bit, he might coom back soon,’ suggested Mary, fervently trusting that he would do nothing of the kind; and that Mr. Mallory would get tired of waiting, as she knew Myles himself did. With a word of thanks Mr. Mallory accepted the invitation, and entered the house. A proper attention to established etiquette would have led Mary to usher him into the highly coloured parlour, but the recollection that there was no fire there, and that some of the furniture was wanting, overcame conventional rules, and he was taken forward into the kitchen. ‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he began, so courteously that all Mary’s innate politeness was roused to action, and his welcome was more effusive than it might otherwise have been. ‘Eh, dear no! Please take a seat!’ said Mary, pulling up her own rocking-chair. ‘Me and Edmund was quite alone, and not doin’ nowt at all, except talk a bit. Ned, here’s Mr. Mallory. You’ve ne’er seen him afore.’ Edmund had never been aware of Myles’s deep antipathy to the young master; he only knew that his brother had a sort of contempt for his employer, as a useless, highly finished piece of humanity, not good for much in such a rough place as Thanshope. He himself was intensely sensitive to refinement and beauty, in every shape and form, and as Sebastian was handsome, polished, and refined in an eminent degree, Edmund’s eyes rested upon him with a sense of satisfaction and soothed pleasure and delight, and he smiled pleasantly as he took the hand which their visitor extended, saying kindly, ‘I fear you are a great invalid.’ ‘I’m none so strong,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve been ill, but now I’m better.’ ‘I suppose you are Myles Heywood’s brother and sister?’ continued Sebastian. ‘Ay,’ said the others, and they smiled--that smile of mingled pride and affection which speaks well for the absent one, and which Sebastian noted directly. He took a chair by Edmund’s sofa, and, turning to Mary, said, ‘I suppose you know your brother has had his name and yours taken off my books.’ ‘Ay,’ responded Mary, colouring with some embarrassment, while Edmund looked rather anxiously from the one to the other, this being the first he had heard of the circumstance. ‘Was it your wish, too, to leave my employment so suddenly?’ he asked slowly. ‘I didn’t know--Myles did it. He thought it would be for the best, I suppose, sir,’ stammered the girl. ‘But you,’ he persisted gently--‘have you such an intense objection to receiving a little assistance in such a time of distress, from a--you don’t say master here, I notice--from an employer whom you have served so long and so well as I hear you have done? I should not have thought so. You know it is not an ordinary case. It is not as if you or I, or any of us here, could have prevented it. There can be no shame----’