view, and breathed defiance from under its
half-closed lid.

CHAPTER 59

When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the
single gentleman's apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or
so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as
usual, nor was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him
standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very
strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill.

'Is anything the matter, sir?' said Kit.

'Matter!' cried Brass. 'No. Why anything the matter?'

'You are so very pale,' said Kit, 'that I should hardly have known you.'

'Pooh pooh! mere fancy,' cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders.
'Never better, Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha!
How's our friend above-stairs, eh?'

'A great deal better,' said Kit.

'I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined Brass; 'thankful, I may say. An
excellent gentleman--worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little
trouble--an admirable lodger. Ha ha! Mr Garland--he's well I hope,
Kit--and the pony--my friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha!'

Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel
Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient,
mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the
button-hole.

'I have been thinking, Kit,' said the lawyer, 'that I could throw some
little emoluments in your mother's way--You have a mother, I think? If
I recollect right, you told me--'

'Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.'

'A widow, I think? an industrious widow?'

'A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.'

'Ah!' cried Brass. 'That's affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow
struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a
delicious picture of human goodness.--Put down your hat, Kit.'

'Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.'

'Put it down while you stay, at any rate,' said Brass, taking it from
him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for
it on the desk. 'I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let
for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you
know we're obliged to put people into those houses to take care of
'em--very often undeserving people that we can't depend upon. What's
to prevent our having a person that we CAN depend upon, and enjoying
the delight of doing a good actio