o keep them for him. Please, sir, look over it
this time."

Horace was too agitated to heed her tears or entreaties. He rushed from
the house with the letters in his hand, and made straight for the
Shucklefords' door. But, with his hand on the bell, he hesitated. Mrs
Shuckleford and her daughter had been good to his mother; he could not
relieve his mind to Samuel in their presence. So he resolved to
postpone that pleasure till he could find the young lawyer alone, and
meanwhile hurried back to his mother and rejoiced her heart with the
good news of Reginald contained in Harker's letter.

How and when Horace and Shuckleford settled accounts no one exactly
knew, but one evening, about a week afterwards, the latter came home
looking very scared and uncomfortable, and announced that he was getting
tired of London, the air of which did not agree with his constitution.
He intended to close with an offer he had received some time ago from a
firm in the country to act as their clerk; and although the sacrifice
was considerable, still the country air and change of scene he felt
would do him good.

So he went, much lamented by his mother and sister and club. But of all
his acquaintances there was only one who knew the exact reason why, just
at that particular time, the country air promised to be so beneficial
for his constitution.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three weeks passed, and then one afternoon a cab rolled slowly up to the
door of Number 6, Dull Street. Horace was away at the office, and Mrs
Cruden herself was out taking a walk.

So the two young men who alighted from the cab found themselves monarchs
of all they surveyed, and proceeded upstairs to the parlour with no one
to ask what their business was.

"Now, old man," said the sturdier of the two, "I won't stay. I've
brought you safe home, and you needn't pretend you'll be sorry to see my
back."

"I won't pretend," said the other, with a smile on his pale face, "but
if you're not back very soon, in an hour or two, I shall be very very
sorry."

"Never fear, I'll be back."

And he went.

The pale youth sat down, and looked with a strange mixture of sadness
and eagerness round the little room. He had seen it before, and yet he
seemed hardly to recognise it. He got up and glanced at a few envelopes
lying on the mantel-piece. He took into his hands a piece of knitting
that lay on one of the chairs and ex