The blue eyes filled with tears, and he dashed them passionately away. The painter looked up with a distressed face. "Has he been beating you again, Guy?" "It's no matter--he's a brute! Granny and Ellen are sorry, and do what they can; but that's nothing. I wish I had never been born!" "It is hard," said the painter, compassionately, "but keep up heart, Guy; if the worst comes, why you can stop here and take pot-luck with the rest--not that that's much better than starvation. You can take to my business shortly, now; and you'll make a better scene-painter than ever I could. You've got it in you." "Do you really think so, Joe?" cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. "Do you? I'd rather be an artist than a king----Halloo!" He stopped short in surprise, staring out of the window. Legard looked. Up the dirty street came a handsome cab, and stopped at their own door. The driver alighted, made some inquiry, then opened the cab-door, and a lady stepped lightly out on the curb-stone--a lady, tall and stately, dressed in black and closely veiled. "Now, who can this visitor be for?" said Legard. "People in this neighborhood ain't in the habit of having morning calls made on them in cabs. She's coming up-stairs!" He held the door open, listening. The lady ascended the first flight of stairs, stopped on the landing, and inquired of some one for "Mrs. Martha Brand." "For granny!" exclaimed the boy. "Joe, I shouldn't wonder if it was some one about that advertisement, after all!" "Neither should I," said Legard. "There! she's gone in. You'll be sent for directly, Guy!" Yes, the lady had gone in. She had encountered on the landing a sickly young woman with a baby in her arms, who had stared at the name she inquired for. "Mrs. Martha Brand? Why, that's mother! Walk in this way, if you please, ma'am." She opened the door, and ushered the veiled lady into a small, close room, poorly furnished. Over a smouldering fire, mending stockings, sat an old woman, who, notwithstanding the extreme shabbiness and poverty of her dress, lifted a pleasant, intelligent old face. "A lady to see you, mother," said the young woman, hushing her fretful baby and looking curiously at the veiled face. But the lady made no attempt to raise the envious screen, not even when Mrs. Martha Brand got up, dropping a respectful little servant's courtesy and placing a chair. It was a very thick veil--an impenetrable shield--and nothing could be discovered of the face behind it but that it was fixedly pale. She sank into the seat, her face turned to the old woman behind that sable screen. "You are Mrs. Brand?" The voice was refined and patrician. It would have told she was a lady, even if the rich garments she wore did not. "Yes, ma'am--your ladyship; Martha Brand." "And you inserted that advertisement in the _Times_ regarding a child left in your care ten years ago?" Mother and daughter started, and stared at the speaker.