"I am the Lord Chudleigh," said the young man doubtfully, and with a pleasing blush. "Again, your lordship is welcome," said the Doctor. "In the old days when I was young and able to stir abroad in the world, without a creditor in every street and a vindictive dun in every shop (whose revenge in this my confinement has only brought lamentation on every mother's son, because they remain all unpaid), it was my privilege to be much with your noble father. In truth, I knew not that he was dead." "My father died two years ago at his country house." "Indeed!" The Doctor gravely gazed in his guest's face, both still standing. "Is that really so? But we who live in this retirement hear little news. So Lord Chudleigh is dead! I went upon the Grand Tour with him. I was his tutor, his companion, his friend, as he was kind enough to call me; he was two years younger than myself, but our tastes were common, and what he bought I enjoyed and often chose. There came a time when--but your lordship is young--you know not yet how rank and class separate friends, how the man of low birth may trust his noble friend too much, and he of rank may think the decalogue written for the vulgar. Your father is dead! I had hoped to see him if but once more, before he died: it was not to be. I would have written to him upon his deathbed had I known: I owed him much--very much more than I could hope to repay, yet would I have repaid something. Your father died suddenly, my lord, or after painful illness?" "He died, Doctor Shovel, after a long and very painful illness." "Why, there," cried the Doctor, as if disappointed. "Had I only known there would have been time for half-a-dozen letters. I would I had been with him myself." "It is kind of you, sir," said his lordship, "thus to speak of my father." "Did he--but I suppose he had forgotten--did he condescend to speak of me?" "Never," replied Lord Chudleigh; "at least not to me." "There were certain passages in his life," the Doctor went on thoughtfully, "of such a kind as recur to the memory of sick and dying men, when the good and evil deeds of our lives stand arrayed before us like ministering spirits and threatening demons. Certain passages, I say, which were intimately associated with myself. Indeed, it cannot be that they entirely perished from his lordship's memory. Since he spoke not of them, let me not speak. I am sorry, my lord, to have saddened you by thus recalling the thought of your dead father." "Nay, sir," said Lord Chudleigh, "to have met so old a friend of my father's is a pleasure I did not expect. I humbly desire, sir, your better acquaintance." The company during this long talk were mostly standing. It was no new thing to meet a man of rank at the Doctor's, but altogether new to have the conversation assume so serious a tone. Every one felt, however, that the dignity of the Doctor was greatly increased by this event. Then the Doctor waved his hand, and resumed his cheerful expression.