arth to me!"

If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet
sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its color at this
appeal. "The man's mad," he said at last, with a tone of astonishment
that almost concealed his wrath--"stark mad! I take his child!--lodge
and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a
time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''Tis a mercy we have no children. We
could never live in this style if we had children--never make both ends
meet.' Child--the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the
world--a child!"

"She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh,
Colonel, let me see your wife. _Her_ heart I can touch--she is a woman."

Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could
not have put into his lips.

Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the
Colonel's grand connections! The Colonel would never have been his own
man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the
earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the
intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in!
And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have
learned already that a Digby was with her husband--she might be actually
dressing to receive him worthily--there was not a moment to lose.

The Colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs.
Pompley! Hush, sir, hush!--hold your tongue. I have disowned your
connection. I will not have my wife--a woman, sir, of the first
family--disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not
a man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did not you run
into debt, and spend your fortune? Did not you marry a low creature--a
vulgarian--a tradesman's daughter?--and your poor father such a
respectable man--a beneficed clergyman! Did not you sell your
commission! Heaven knows what became of the money! Did not you turn (I
shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir? And then, when you were
on your last legs, did I not give you L200 out of my own purse to go to
Canada? And now here you are again--and ask me, with a coolness
that--that takes away my breath--takes away--my breath, sir--to provide
for the child you have thought proper to have;--a child whose
connections on the mother's side are of the most abject and
discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave it--good heavens