"Yah! stuff! How do you know--a boy like you? No, no--I mean yes, of course, so they are. I've been thinking, you know, what might have been, if I'd met with such a lady as that Miss Carr, or our pretty little bird there, thirty or forty years ago. Hah! I should have been a different man. But I never did, my boy, I never did." He took a pinch of snuff very thoughtfully here. "It's too late now, Grace, too late now. You can't make winter into summer; and it's getting to the winter with me now. That's a very nice little thing downstairs. Has she--has she any--any--" "Lover, Mr Rowle?" "Yes." "Not now," I said. "There was one, but it ended unhappily. He was a blackguard," I said warmly. "Was he, though?" he said eagerly. "That's right, Grace, I like to see you have some spirit. Poor little lassie! No father, either." "Mr Hallett is more like a father to her than a brother," I replied, as I thought it would be better not to mention John Lister's name. "Father--father--" said the old man dreamily. "How curious it must be to feel that one is the father of anything; that it is your own, and that it loves you. Now, do you know, Grace, I never thought of that before." "You have always been such a business man, Mr Rowle," I said. "Yes--yes, grinding on every day, without a thought of anything but other people's mistakes, and none about my own. You like little Miss Linny there--downstairs?" "Oh yes," I cried; "she always seems to have been like a sister ever since I knew her." "Hum! Hah! Yes! Like a sister," he said thoughtfully. "Well, she's a very nice little girl, Grace, and I like her; but you need not tell her so." "Oh no, of course not, Mr Rowle," I said, laughing. "Shall we go upstairs?" "Yes, my boy, directly. "But look here, Grace," he continued, fumbling in his pocket, and bringing out a newspaper slip. "Hum! hah! oh, here it is. Read that." He pointed to an advertisement of an elderly couple without children, wishing to adopt a young girl; and I read it, and then looked at him wonderingly. "I suppose that sort of thing is done sometimes, eh?" he said. "I don't know, Mr Rowle," I replied. "Hum! No, of course you don't," he said thoughtfully, after another pinch. "Come along upstairs, my boy, and let's look at the machine." CHAPTER FIFTY TWO. MR JABEZ HAS A SPASM. There had been some little dispute about the drawing up of the terms between Hallett and Mr Rowle. The former would not listen to the old gentleman's proposition that it should be settled by a letter between them, saying that it ought to be a proper legal document, for both their sakes; and the knot was solved, as they did not wish to consult a solicitor, by my proposing to bring Tom Girtley home with me some evening, when the legal training he was undergoing might prove sufficient for the purpose.