rviceableness which stamp him as a man of amiable nature.
The moment he appears, Ramsden's face expands into fatherly liking and
welcome, an expression which drops into one of decorous grief as the
young man approaches him with sorrow in his face as well as in his black
clothes. Ramsden seems to know the nature of the bereavement. As the
visitor advances silently to the writing table, the old man rises and
shakes his hand across it without a word: a long, affectionate shake
which tells the story of a recent sorrow common to both.

RAMSDEN. [concluding the handshake and cheering up] Well, well,
Octavius, it's the common lot. We must all face it someday. Sit down.

Octavius takes the visitor's chair. Ramsden replaces himself in his own.

OCTAVIUS. Yes: we must face it, Mr Ramsden. But I owed him a great deal.
He did everything for me that my father could have done if he had lived.

RAMSDEN. He had no son of his own, you see.

OCTAVIUS. But he had daughters; and yet he was as good to my sister as
to me. And his death was so sudden! I always intended to thank him--to
let him know that I had not taken all his care of me as a matter
of course, as any boy takes his father's care. But I waited for an
opportunity and now he is dead--dropped without a moment's warning. He
will never know what I felt. [He takes out his handkerchief and cries
unaffectedly].

RAMSDEN. How do we know that, Octavius? He may know it: we cannot
tell. Come! Don't grieve. [Octavius masters himself and puts up his
handkerchief]. That's right. Now let me tell you something to console
you. The last time I saw him--it was in this very room--he said to me:
"Tavy is a generous lad and the soul of honor; and when I see how little
consideration other men get from their sons, I realize how much better
than a son he's been to me." There! Doesn't that do you good?

OCTAVIUS. Mr Ramsden: he used to say to me that he had met only one man
in the world who was the soul of honor, and that was Roebuck Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Oh, that was his partiality: we were very old friends, you
know. But there was something else he used to say about you. I wonder
whether I ought to tell you or not!

OCTAVIUS. You know best.

RAMSDEN. It was something about his daughter.

OCTAVIUS. [eagerly] About Ann! Oh, do tell me that, Mr Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Well, he said he was glad, after all, you were not his son,
because he thought that someday Annie and you--[Octavius blushes
vividly].