All this time he had not been alone; but his companion was not one who claimed much notice. There was spread before the fire a large milky-white rug, like those that stopped the draught from the windows; and upon this, half-buried in the fur, lay a small boy in knickerbockers absorbed in a book. The child was between seven and eight; he was dressed in a blue velveteen suit, somewhat shabby. He was small even for his small age. His face was a little pale face, with fair and rather lanky locks. Sometimes he would lie on his back with his book supported upon his chest--sometimes the other way, with the book on the rug, and his head a little raised, leaning on his hands. This was his attitude at present; he took no notice of his father, nor his father of him; he was a kind of postscript to old Mr. Trevor’s life; no one had expected him, no one had wanted him; when he chose to come into the world it was at his own risk, so to speak. He had been permitted to live, and had been called John--a good, safe, serviceable name, but no special encouragement of any other kind had been given to him, to pursue the thankless path of existence. Nevertheless, little Jock had done so in a dogged sort of way. He had been delicate, but he had always gone on all the same. Lately he had found the best of all allies and defenders in his sister, but no one else took much notice of him, nor he of them; and his father and he paid no attention to each other. Mr. Trevor took care not to stumble over him, being thoroughly accustomed to his presence; and as for little Jock, he never stirred. He was on the rug in the body, but in soul he was in the forest of Ardennes, or tilting on the Spanish roads with Don Quixote. It was wonderful, some people thought, that such a baby should read at all, or reading, that he should have any books above the level of those that are written in three syllables. But the child had no baby-books, and therefore he took what he could get. Are not the baby-books a snare and delusion, keeping children out of their inheritance? How can they understand Shakespeare, you will say? and I suppose Jock did not understand; yet that great person pervaded the very air about this little person, so that it glowed and shone. Only his shoulders, raised a little way out of the white silky fluff of the rug, betrayed the immovable creature, and his book was almost lost altogether in it. There he lay, thinking nothing of how his life was to run, or of the influences which might be developing round him. There was not a piece of furniture in the room which counted for less with Mr. Trevor than little Jock. Ford was a long time coming; he had some business of his own on hand, which though not half so important, was, on the whole, more interesting to him than Mr. Trevor’s business; and then he had a little argumentation with Mrs. Ford before he could get away.