Before she had half done, the door opened softly, and a rather dirty face was thrust in. It was the face of an old-looking boy with snub-nose, large mouth, and a rough, shock head bristling over his prominent forehead, and all redeemed by as bright and roguish-looking a pair of eyes as ever shone out from beneath a low type of head. The door was only opened wide enough at first to admit the head, but as soon as its owner had given a glance round, the door opened farther, and the rest of a rather small person appeared, dressed in a well-worn page's button suit, partly hidden by a dirty green-baize bibbed apron. The boy's sleeves were tucked up, and he was carrying a pair of old-fashioned Wellington boots by the tops, and these boots he held up on high. "Didn't know, Miss, whether the doctor had gone. Been a-cleaning his boots. Look, Miss, there's a shine!" "Yes, yes, Bob, they look very nice. Take them, up-stairs, and then come and clear away." "All right, Miss. I made a whole bottle o' blacking outer half a cake as a chap I knows give me." "Yes, yes, Bob." "Stunning blacking it is, too. He's in the Brigade, and I minded his box for him, and took sixpence while he went and had a game of marbles. That's why he give me the cake." "Now, Bob, my good lad, I don't want to know anything about that. Take those boots up-stairs." "All right, Miss; but do look how they shines. I polished tops and all. Look, Miss." "Yes, yes, yes; they are beautifully clean." "I allus thinks about legs, Miss, when I cleans boots; and when I thinks about legs, I think about the doctor making such a good job o' mine arter I was run over. It's stronger than the other; I am glad as it was broke." "Glad?" "Yes, Miss. Why, if I hadn't been run over, my leg wouldn't have been broke, and then the doctor wouldn't have mended it, and I shouldn't be here. What's she gone away for?" said the boy to himself, as he stared after Richmond. "She's been a-crying; one of her eyes was wet. What cowards gals are to cry!" The boy went to the door and listened, but all was perfectly still; so he set down the boots, rolled his apron into what he called a cow's tail, the process consisting in twisting it up very tightly and tucking it round his waist. This done he listened again, and finding all still, he thrust his arms into the doctor's boots and indulged in a hearty laugh of a silently weird description before going down on all fours, and walking as slowly and solemnly round the table as a tom cat, whose movements he accurately copied, rubbing himself up against the legs of the table, and purring loudly. This over, he rose to his feet and listened, but all being still, he went down upon all fours again and trotted round the table, leaped on to a chair, leaped down again, and ran out of the room and along the dark passage towards the head of the kitchen stairs, looking in the gloom wonderfully like some large ape.