ng for it
but to get out, which she did, taking Dick by the hand, a proceeding that
necessarily put her identity beyond a doubt. The moment she got her foot
on to the platform, the crowd saw her, and there arose such a tremendous
shout of welcome that she very nearly took refuge again in the carriage.
For a moment she stood hesitating, and the crowd, seeing how sweet and
beautiful she was (for the three months of sea air had made her stouter
and even more lovely), cheered again with that peculiar enthusiasm which
a discerning public always shows for a pretty face. But even while she
stood bewildered on the platform she heard a loud "Make way--make way
there!" and saw the multitude being divided by a little knot of
officials, who were escorting somebody dressed in widow's weeds.

In another second there was a cry of joy, and a sweet, pale faced little
lady had run at the child Dick, and was hugging him against her heart,
and sobbing and laughing both at once.

"Oh! my boy! my boy!" cried Lady Holmhurst, for it was she, "I thought
you were dead--long ago dead!"

And then she turned, and, before all the people there, clung about
Augusta's neck and kissed her and blessed her, because she had saved her
only child, and half removed the deadweight of her desolation. Whereat
the crowd cheered, and wept, and yelled, and swore with excitement, and
blessed their stars that they were there to see.

And then, in a haze of noise and excitement, they were led through the
cheering mob to where a carriage and pair were standing, and were helped
into it, Mrs. Thomas being placed on the front seat, and Lady Holmhurst
and Augusta on the back, the former with the gasping Dick upon her knee.

And now little Dick is out of the story.

Then another event occurred, which we must go back a little to explain.

When Eustace Meeson had come to town, after being formally disinherited,
he had managed to get a billet as Latin, French, and Old English reader
in a publishing house of repute. As it happened, on this very afternoon
he was strolling down the Strand, having finished a rather stiff day's
work, and with a mind filled with those idle and somewhat confused odds
and ends of speculation with which most brain workers will be acquainted.
He looked older and paler than when we last met him, for sorrow and
misfortune had laid their heavy hands upon him. When Augusta had
departed, he had discovered that he was head over heels in love with her
i