riding. His hair was dark
red, and he wore red moustaches, and a great deal of red beard
beneath his chin, cut in a manner to make him look like an American.
His voice also had a Yankee twang, being a cross between that of an
American trader and an English groom; and his eyes were keen and
fixed, and cold and knowing.

Such was the son whom Sir Roger saw standing at his bedside when
first he awoke to consciousness. It must not be supposed that Sir
Roger looked at him with our eyes. To him he was an only child,
the heir of his wealth, the future bearer of his title; the most
heart-stirring remembrancer of those other days, when he had been
so much a poorer, and so much a happier man. Let that boy be bad
or good, he was all Sir Roger had; and the father was still able
to hope, when others thought that all ground for hope was gone.

The mother also loved her son with a mother's natural love; but Louis
had ever been ashamed of his mother, and had, as far as possible,
estranged himself from her. Her heart, perhaps, fixed itself
with almost a warmer love on Frank Gresham, her foster-son. Frank
she saw but seldom, but when she did see him he never refused her
embrace. There was, too, a joyous, genial lustre about Frank's face
which always endeared him to women, and made his former nurse regard
him as the pet creation of the age. Though she but seldom interfered
with any monetary arrangement of her husband's, yet once or twice she
had ventured to hint that a legacy left to the young squire would
make her a happy woman. Sir Roger, however, on these occasions had
not appeared very desirous of making his wife happy.

"Ah, Louis! is that you?" ejaculated Sir Roger, in tones hardly more
than half-formed: afterwards, in a day or two that is, he fully
recovered his voice; but just then he could hardly open his jaws, and
spoke almost through his teeth. He managed, however, to put out his
hand and lay it on the counterpane, so that his son could take it.

"Why, that's well, governor," said the son; "you'll be as right as a
trivet in a day or two--eh, governor?"

The "governor" smiled with a ghastly smile. He already pretty well
knew that he would never again be "right," as his son called it, on
that side of the grave. It did not, moreover, suit him to say much
just at that moment, so he contented himself with holding his son's
hand. He lay still in this position for a moment, and then, turning
round painfully on his side, endeavo