"Well, Mrs Waynflete," he said; "Mr Guy is young, and young folks like to have something to show for their opinions. But, there's been many new fashions since you and I began to work the business. The old master never held with following the fashion." "You can be making changes every year if you do." "So you can do, Mrs Waynflete; so you can. Eh, but I've seen changes." "Mr Guy has a notion of business, too," said the old lady. "Did ye see Mr Guy when he came home, ma'am?" said John Cooper, suddenly. "No; he had a bit of headache, and went to his room. Young men aren't as tough as they used to be." There was a silence. The old man watched the lady over the writing-table between them. He, too, was a vigorous old grey-head, with a hard mouth and keen eyes wrinkled up close. The little room was full of bills and letters and safes. A stray ray of afternoon sun shot through the small-paned window, and showed the dusty air and the dusty floor, and the well-arranged contents of the dusty shelves. John Cooper crossed the little room, and stood in the streak of sunshine. It shone upon his well-known grey hair, on his shrewd, weather-beaten face, and glittered on a small key left in a little oak cupboard in the wall. John Cooper opened the cupboard, and the sun shot in and sparkled with sudden brilliant reflections on something inside. "Eh, what have you there?" said Mrs Waynflete. John Cooper took out a tall brandy-bottle, nearly empty, and a glass still containing some drops of spirit, and set them on the table. "Mr Guy left the key by mistake," he said. "John Cooper! What do you mean?" No asseveration could have added to the abrupt force of the intonation, as Mrs Waynflete sat upright, grasping the arms of her wooden chair, and looking straight at the manager. "Mr Guy keeps that cupboard close locked. But to-day he left it swinging open, when he went home--with a headache." "Did ye see him go?" "I came in at the door here, Mrs Waynflete, and Mr Guy staggered past me, and never saw me. He went stumbling out and up the lane. Hurrying and reeling as he went--as once and again I've seen him before." Mrs Waynflete's brown old face grew a shade paler, she still held by the arms of the chair, as she rapidly weighed what had been said. It seemed to her that the fact of the young man's possessing a bottle of spirits was as nothing compared with the secrecy with which he had concealed it. Nor would he be the first in the house of Waynflete to fall a victim to such a temptation. On the one hand, Mrs Waynflete had seen it in her father, and feared it for her brother; on the other, there was nothing in Guy's look or ways to suggest it, save the occasional attacks of illness, as to which he was always mysterious and secretive. "Lock up the cupboard," she said, "and give me the key. And ye'll not say a word of this matter." "Nay, not to Joshua Howarth, nor to young Jos, nor to my own John Henry. It's no matter for talking of."