ate to-day by a curious sort of
petitioner,--a poor woman, who seems to be one of your tenants, sir, but
whom your agent must have been rather too hard upon."

"My agent? Who is that?" said my father quietly.

"I don't know his name, and I doubt his competence. The poor creature
seems to have had everything taken from her,--her bed, her child's
cradle."

"No doubt she was behind with her rent."

"Very likely, sir. She seemed very poor," said I.

"You take it coolly," said my father, with an upward glance, half-amused,
not in the least shocked by my statement. "But when a man, or a woman
either, takes a house, I suppose you will allow that they ought to pay
rent for it."

"Certainly, sir," I replied, "when they have got anything to pay."

"I don't allow the reservation," he said. But he was not angry, which I
had feared he would be.

"I think," I continued, "that your agent must be too severe. And this
emboldens me to say something which has been in my mind for some
time"--(these were the words, no doubt, which I had hoped would be put
into my month; they were the suggestion of the moment, and yet as I said
them it was with the most complete conviction of their truth)--"and that
is this: I am doing nothing; my time hangs heavy on my hands. Make me
your agent. I will see for myself, and save you from such mistakes; and
it will be an occupation--"

"Mistakes? What warrant have you for saying these are mistakes?" he said
testily; then after a moment: "This is a strange proposal from you, Phil.
Do you know what it is you are offering?--to be a collector of rents,
going about from door to door, from week to week; to look after wretched
little bits of repairs, drains, etc.; to get paid, which, after all, is
the chief thing, and not to be taken in by tales of poverty."

"Not to let you be taken in by men without pity," I said.

He gave me a strange glance, which I did not very well understand, and
said abruptly, a thing which, so far as I remember, he had never in my
life said before, "You've become a little like your mother, Phil--"

"My mother!" the reference was so unusual--nay, so unprecedented--that I
was greatly startled. It seemed to me like the sudden introduction of a
quite new element in the stagnant atmosphere, as well as a new party to
our conversation. My father looked across the table, as if with some
astonishment at my tone of surprise.

"Is that so very extraordinary?" he said.

"No; of course i