"Oh, my darling child, the gentleman will be angry! He's a sad invalid, Mr. Scarsdale; everybody indulges him," cried poor Mrs. Stenhouse. "Pray, pray, don't be displeased!" "He's a good deal bigger than me," said Horace, half amused, and half spiteful, answering the question with an involuntary grudge, and increased impulse of dislike to poor Roger, whose additional inches--poor advantage though that was--it galled him for the moment to remember. The child clapped his hands. "How much?" he cried, with a little childish shout of triumph. The sight would have been touching enough to any one who had the heart to be moved by it. But Horace saw nothing that was not ludicrous in the poor little dwarfish invalid's eager and exultant curiosity about the size and strength of his unknown brother. He laughed in spite of himself. "About two inches, perhaps," he said; "I have not heard anything of Musgrave lately," he continued, turning to the mother; "you know, perhaps, that he enlisted and went abroad; but I have an uncle--Colonel Sutherland, you may have heard of him--who took poor Roger up; he is very likely to know." The scant civility and supercilious tone of this reply lost all its effect upon Mrs. Stenhouse from the name contained in it--"Colonel Sutherland! Oh, Edmund, darling! the dear old Colonel who was so kind to Roger!" she said, with tears in her eyes; "and to think a relation of his should come here! Oh, Mr. Scarsdale, if there is anything we can do for you, I or my poor boy (and Mr. Stenhouse will do anything to please Edmund), you have only to say it--oh, thank you, thank you, a hundred times! My dearest child, it is very late, we must not keep Mr. Scarsdale longer to-night; another time perhaps he will come in and see us and tell us more. Good night, good night! Say good night, darling, to the gentleman; and thank you a hundred times, Mr. Scarsdale. I am so very, very glad you have come here!" Saying which, Mrs. Stenhouse preceded her visitor to the street-door, and opened it for him with her own trembling hands.