practically owed his subsistence to Thomas Bird, whose good offices had at
length established the poor fellow at a hairdresser's. To sit frequently
for an hour at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs.
Batty's talk of her own and her son's ailments, was in itself a marvel of
charity. This evening she met him as he entered, and lighted him into his
room.

'There's a letter come for you, Mr. Bird. I put it down somewheres--why,
now, where _did_ I--? Oh, 'ere it is. You'll be glad to 'ear as Sam did his
first shave to-day, an' his 'and didn't tremble much neither.'

Burning with desire to open the letter, which he saw was from Mrs. Warbeck,
Thomas stood patiently until the flow of words began to gurgle away amid
groans and pantings.

'Well,' he cried gaily, 'didn't I promise Sam a shilling when he'd done his
first shave? If I didn't I ought to have done, and here it is for him.'

Then he hurried into the bedroom, and read his letter by candle-light. It
was a short scrawl on thin, scented, pink-hued notepaper. Would he do Mrs.
Warbeck the 'favour' of looking in before ten to-night? No explanation of
this unusually worded request; and Thomas fell at once into a tremor of
anxiety. With a hurried glance at his watch, he began to make ready for the
visit, struggling with drawers which would neither open nor shut, and
driven to despair by the damp condition of his clean linen.

In this room, locked away from all eyes but his own, lay certain relics
which Thomas worshipped. One was a photograph of a girl of fifteen. At that
age Alma Warbeck promised little charm, and the photograph allowed her
less; but it was then that Thomas Bird became her bondman, as he had ever
since remained. There was also a letter, the only one that he had ever
received from her--'Dear Mr. Bird,--Mamma says will you buy her some more
of those _jewjewbs_ at the shop in the city, and bring them on
Sunday.--Yours sincerely, Alma Warbeck'--written when she was sixteen,
seven years ago. Moreover, there was a playbill, used by Alma on the single
occasion when he accompanied the family to a theatre.

Never had he dared to breathe a syllable of what he thought--'hoped' would
misrepresent him, for Thomas in this matter had always stifled hope.
Indeed, hope would have been irrational. In the course of her teens Alma
grew tall and well proportioned; not beautiful of feature, but pleasing;
not brilliant in personality, but good-natured; fairly