"I'm awfully sorry, ma'am; I wish I could be of any use," said honest Tom Sedley, speaking very low and kindly, standing beside her, with, I think, tears in his eyes. "I wish so much, ma'am, you could employ me any way. I'd be so glad to be of any use, about your son, or to see that Mr. Larkin. I don't like his face, ma'am, and would not advise your trusting him too much." "Our little child's dead. Oh! Arthur--Arthur!--a beautiful little thing; and you, my darling,--that I watched for, so long--never to come again--never, never--never--I have no one now." "I'll come to you and see you in the morning," said Tom. And he walked home in the dark, and stopped on the summit of the hill, looking down upon the twinkling lights of the town, and back again toward solemn Malory, thinking of what he had seen, and what an odd world it was. CHAPTER XXI. BY RAIL TO LONDON. ABOUT an hour later, Tom Sedley, in solitude, meditated thus-- "I wonder whether the Etherages"--(meaning pretty Miss Agnes)--"would think it a bore if I went up to see them. It's too late for tea. I'm afraid they mightn't like it. No one, of course, like Cleve now. They'd find me very dull, I dare say. I don't care, I'll walk up, and if I see the lights in the drawing-room windows, I'll try." He did walk up; he did see the lights in the drawing-room windows; and he did try, with the result of finding himself upon the drawing-room carpet a minute after, standing at the side of Agnes, and chatting to Miss Charity. "How is your father?" asked Tom, seeing the study untenanted. "Not at _all_ well, _I_ think; he had an accident to-day. Didn't you hear?" "_Accident!_ No, I didn't." "Oh! yes. Somehow, when Lord Verney and the other people were coming up here to-day, he was going to meet them, and among them they overturned his bath-chair, and I don't know really who's to blame. Captain Shrapnell says he saved his life; but, however it happened, he was upset and very much shaken. I see you laughing, Thomas Sedley! What on earth _can_ you see in it to laugh at? It's so exactly like Agnes--she _laughed_! you did, _indeed_, Agnes, and if I had not _seen_ it, with my _own eyes_, I _could_ not have _believed_ it!" "I knew papa was not hurt, and I could not help laughing, if you put me to death for it, and they say he drove over Lord Verney's foot." "That would not break my heart," said Sedley. "Did you hear the particulars from Cleve?" "No, I did not see Mr. Verney to speak to, since the accident," said Miss Charity. "By-the-by, who was the tall, good-looking girl, in the seal-skin coat, he was talking to all the way to the jetty? I think she was Lady Wimbledon's daughter." "So she was; has she rather large blue eyes?" "Yes." "Oh! it must be she; that's Miss Caroline Oldys. She's such a joke; she's elder than Cleve." "Oh! that's impossible; she's decidedly younger than Mr. Cleve Verney, and, I think, extremely pretty."