'How?' inquired her brother.

'I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence; I have not
tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. When he does, dear
John, let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you, and let me
bring you together. He will certainly help us to a new livelihood. His
entreaty was that he might do something to smooth my life and yours; and
I gave him my promise that if we ever wanted a friend, I would remember
him.'

'Then his name was to be no secret, 'Harriet,' said her brother, who had
listened with close attention, 'describe this gentleman to me. I surely
ought to know one who knows me so well.'

His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature, and
dress of her visitor; but John Carker, either from having no knowledge
of the original, or from some fault in her description, or from some
abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro, pondering, could
not recognise the portrait she presented to him.

However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original when
he next appeared. This concluded, the sister applied herself, with a
less anxious breast, to her domestic occupations; and the grey-haired
man, late Junior of Dombey's, devoted the first day of his unwonted
liberty to working in the garden.

It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while the
sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking at the
door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about
them in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound, unusual
there, became almost alarming. The brother going to the door, the sister
sat and listened timidly. Someone spoke to him, and he replied and
seemed surprised; and after a few words, the two approached together.

'Harriet,' said her brother, lighting in their late visitor, and
speaking in a low voice, 'Mr Morfin--the gentleman so long in Dombey's
House with James.'

His sister started back, as if a ghost had entered. In the doorway stood
the unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the ruddy
face, the broad clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret she had kept so
long!

'John!' she said, half-breathless. 'It is the gentleman I told you of,
today!'

'The gentleman, Miss Harriet,' said the visitor, coming in--for he had
stopped a moment in the doorway--'is greatly relieved to hear you
say that: he has been devising ways and means, all the way