I am glad to
see _you_! I understood you was here!" And Cobbs says: "Yes, sir. Your
most obedient, sir."

I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots assures
me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. "I beg your
pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door; "I do hope you are
not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and
will do you credit and honor." And Boots signifies to me that, if the
fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in
which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and
taken the consequences.

But Mr. Walmers only says: "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!"
And, the door being opened, goes in.

Boots goes in, too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up
to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face.
Then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it
(they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes
the little shoulder.

"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!"

Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs, too. Such is
the honor of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has
brought him into trouble.

"I'm not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come
home."

"Yes, pa."

Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when
he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands, at
last, a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him,
the quiet image of him.

"Please may I"--the spirit of that little creatur', and the way he
kept his rising tears down!--"please, dear pa--may I--kiss Norah
before I go?"

"You may, my child."

So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the
candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is
seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast
asleep. There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays
his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor
unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to
him--a sight so touching to the chambermaids, who are peeping through
the door, that one of them called out, "It's a shame to part 'em!" But
this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs us, a softhearted one.
Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it.

Finally, Boots says, that's all about it.