from Zack's youth,
to none in connection with _him._ But what elder relatives had he? and
which of them was he most like?

Did he take after his father?

Mat was looking down at the sleeper, just then; something in the lad's
face troubled him, and kept his mind from pursuing that last thought.
He took the lock of hair from the pillow, and went into the front room.
There was anxiety and almost dread in his face, as he thought of the
fatally decisive question in relation to the momentous discovery he had
just made, which must be addressed to Zack when he awoke. He had never
really known how fond he was of his fellow lodger until now, when he
was conscious of a dull, numbing sensation of dismay at the prospect of
addressing that question to the friend who had lived as a brother with
him, since the day when they first met.

As the evening closed in, Zack woke. It was a relief to Mat, as he went
to the bedside, to know that his face could not now be clearly seen. The
burden of that terrible question pressed heavily on his heart, while he
held his comrade's feeble hand; while he answered as considerately, yet
as briefly as he could, the many inquiries addressed to him; and while
he listened patiently and silently to the sufferer's long, wandering,
faintly-uttered narrative of the accident that had befallen him. Towards
the close of that narrative, Zack himself unconsciously led the way to
the fatal question which Mat longed, yet dreaded to ask him.

"Well, old fellow," he said, turning feebly on his pillow, so as to face
Matthew, "something like what you call the 'horrors' has been taking
hold of me. And this morning, in particular, I was so wretched and
lonely, that I asked the landlady to write for me to my father, begging
his pardon, and all that. I haven't behaved as well as I ought; and,
somehow, when a fellow's ill and lonely he gets homesick--"

His voice began to grow faint, and he left the sentence unfinished.

"Zack," said Mat, turning his face away from the bed while he spoke,
though it was now quite dark. "Zack, what sort of a man is your father?"

"What sort of a man! How do you mean?"

"To look at. Are you like him in the face?"

"Lord help you, Mat! as little like as possible. My father's face is all
wrinkled and marked."

"Aye, aye, like other old men's faces. His hair's grey, I suppose?"

"Quite white. By-the-by--talking of that--there _is_ one point I'm like
him in--at least, like what he _was,_