"I shall try, at all events." "Try. Go to her; say anything to her; make any arrangement with her you choose; take her away altogether. I don't care a button what you do, so you only leave me." "I will leave you willingly, and am indeed sorry to have put you to so much pain." "Not a word, I pray you," answered Mr. Brandon, now polite and smiling. "You have performed a disagreeable duty in the least disagreeable way you could, I do not doubt. All I ask is, never to hear it mentioned again." Dick stayed for no more ceremony. Glad to be released from such an atmosphere of selfishness and cowardice, he hardly waited for the answer to his good-morning before turning to the street. In less than an hour he was in the dreary room, with _boarding-house_ stamped all over its walls, saying good-morning to a stately young lady, very pale and weary-looking, who kindly rose to receive him. {67} The little room was hot and close; there were no shutters to the windows; the shades were too narrow at the sides; besides being so unevenly put up that the eyes ached every time one turned toward them, and the gleaming light was almost worse than the heat. "I have been trying for the dozenth time to straighten them," said Mary, drawing one down somewhat lower, "but it's of no use." "Are they crooked?" asked Dick innocently. "Well, yes, rather," answered Mary, smiling. "I think I never saw anything before that was so near the perfection of crooked." "I have seen your father this morning," Dick began, taking a chair near the table. "There is nothing the matter, I hope?" she questioned nervously. "Nothing that any one but myself need mind. I made some discoveries about myself last evening that I would like to tell you. Have you time?" "I have nothing to do. I shall be very glad if my attentive listening can do you any service." She moved her chair, in a quiet way, a little farther from his, and looked at him in some surprise. She saw he was very earnest, excited, and greatly embarrassed. She could not help seeing that his eyes were anxiously following her every movement, eagerly trying to read her face. "I am afraid I shall shock you very much, and you are not well; I am sorry I came. I thought only of my own eagerness to see you; not, until this moment, of the pain I may cause you." "Do not think of that. I do not think, Mr. Heremore, you are likely to say anything that should pain me. I think you too sensible--I mean, too gentlemanly for that." "I hope you really mean that. I am sure I must seem very rude and unpolished in your eyes; but I would have been far more so, had it not been for you." "For me?" "Yes." And he told her about the Christmas morning in Fourteenth Street. "And you remembered that little thing all this time!" Mary exclaimed. "And you were once a newsboy!"