he front, Tom. Perhaps it isn't right to come
round here. We might startle them."

"Wouldn't startle Sally, even if she were here, Mas'r Harry. Nothing
never did startle she, though she ain't here now."

The fact was that I felt as nervous and tremulous about going in as poor
Tom, and accordingly we went round to the front, and after a moment's
hesitation I gave a rap at the door.

No answer.

I rapped again, and then, finding the door unfastened, I pushed against
it with trembling hand to find it yield, and, walking straight in, I
turned to the right and entered the little parlour.

As I went in some one who had been sitting back asleep in the easy-chair
started up and took a great red handkerchief from his face.

As he did this I was advancing with open hands, but only to stop short,
for it was not my father.

"Hillo!" said the stranger, a dirty-looking man with an inflamed nose.

"Hallo!" I said; "who are you?"

"Who am I?" said the stranger, staring at me as if I were asking a most
absurd question. "Why, persession--that's about what I am. Are you
come to pay me out?"

"Pay you out!--possession!" I faltered. "Why, what does it mean?"

"Sold by hockshin without reserve by one of the morkygees," said the
man, "soon as the inwintory's took."

"Where are my father and mother?" I said, with my heart sinking at the
idea of the distress they must have been in.

"Now, then!" said a sharp voice, and a young woman came to the inner
door; "who do you want?"

"Sally!" whispered Tom excitedly.

"Why, Sally!" I exclaimed, "don't you know me again?"

"It isn't Master Harry, is it?" she said wonderingly.

"Yes, Sally," I said. "Why, how you have altered and improved!"

"Get along, Master Harry; it's you that's improved. Who's that big,
stoopid-looking young man with you?"

"Oh, I say!" groaned Tom.

"Oh, I see!" she said carelessly, "it's the boy!"

"Ain't she hard on a fellow, Mas'r Harry?" whispered Tom; but I did not
reply, for I was questioning Sally.

"What! haven't you heard?" she said.

"No, I've heard nothing," I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"'Bout master's having failed, and a set o' wretches,"--here she glanced
at the dirty-looking man--"coming and robbing him of his business, and
his house, and his furniture, and everything a'most he's got."

"No, no, Sally, I have heard nothing. But are they well?"

"Oh, yes, as well as folks can be as is being robbed by folks who come
s