‘My dear Laura, do you think a man can live his life without making acquaintance he would not care to exhibit in the glare of noonday? You know the old adage about poverty and strange bedfellows. I hope there is no treason in reminding you that Mr. Treverton was not always rich.’ ‘No. I am not ashamed of his having been poor; but it would shame me if I thought he had any acquaintance in his poverty whom he would blush to own now he is rich. Will you begin your reading? The children are ready.’ The infants, flushed and towzled by their sports, had been ranged on benches by the joint efforts of Tom Sampson, his sister, and Celia Clare, and were now being regaled with cake and negus. Celia had placed a small table, with a pair of candles and a glass of water, at the end of the room, for the accommodation of the reader. ‘Silence!’ commanded Mr. Sampson, as Edward walked to his place, gave a little preparatory cough, and opened his book. ‘Silence for “The Jackdaw of Rheims.”’ ‘The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair! Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there; Many a monk and many a friar, Many a knight and many a squire,’ began Edward. A loud peal of the front-door bell startled him. He stopped for a moment, and looked at Laura, who was sitting with the Vicar and his wife in a little group near the fireplace at the other end of the room. At the sound of the bell she looked up quickly, and, with an agitated air, kept her eyes fixed on the door, as if she expected some one to enter. He had no excuse for leaving off reading, curious as he felt about that bell, and Laura’s evident concern. He went on mechanically, full of wondering speculations as to what was going on in the entrance hall, hating the open-mouthed and open-eyed infants who were hanging on his words; while Celia, seated at the end of the front row, started all the laughter and applause. ‘Where did I meet that man?’ he asked himself over and over again while he read on. The answer flashed upon him in the middle of a sentence. ‘It is the man I saw with Chicot in Drury Lane; the man I talked to in the public-house.’ The door opened, and the slow and portly Trimmer came in, and softly made his way to the place where his mistress was seated. He whispered to her, and then she whispered to Mrs. Clare--doubtless an apology for leaving her--and anon followed Trimmer out of the room. ‘What can that man--if it is that man who rang the bell--want with _her_?’ wondered Edward, so deeply moved that he could scarcely go on reading. ‘Is the secret going to be told to-night? Are the cards going to be taken out of my hands?’ CHAPTER XXVI. A DISINTERESTED PARENT. ‘A person has called to see you, ma’am. He begs to apologise for coming so late, but he has travelled a long way, and will be very thankful if you can see him.’ This is what the butler had whispered in Mrs. Treverton’s ear, handing her at the same time a card on which there was a name written--