xactly."

"Indeed," said Mr Larks; "h'm! I know the boy too."

"Do you? Why didn't you tell me that?"

"There was no occasion to," said the imperturbable Mr Larks, whose
visage never by any chance conveyed any expression whatever, except when
he pleased, and then it conveyed only and exactly the expression that he
intended. "But come," he continued, "let's hear all about it, and don't
quote any poetry till you have done with the facts."

Thus exhorted Queeker described the scene at the supper-table with
faithful minuteness, and, on concluding, demanded what was to be done.

"H'm!" grunted Mr Larks. "They've gone to visit Nora Jones, so you and
I shall go and keep them company. Come along."

He put on his hat and went out, followed by his little friend.

In a lowly ill-furnished room in one of the poorest streets of the town,
where rats and dogs and cats seemed to divide the district with
poverty-stricken human beings, they found Nora sitting by the bedside of
her grandmother, who appeared to be dying. A large Family Bible, from
which she had been reading, was open on her knee.

Mr Larks had opened the door and entered without knocking. He and
Queeker stood in the passage and saw the bed, the invalid, and the
watcher through an inner door which stood ajar. They could hear the
murmurings of the old woman's voice. She appeared to wander in her
mind, for sometimes her words were coherent, at other times she merely
babbled.

"O Morley, Morley, give it up," she said, during one of her lucid
intervals; "it has been the curse of our family. Your grandfather died
of it; your father--ah! he _was_ a man, tall and straight, and _so_
kind, till he took to it; oh me! how it changed him! But the Lord saved
his soul, though he let the body fall to the dust. Blessed be His holy
name for that. Give it up, Morley, my darling boy; give it up, give it
up--oh, for God's sake give it up!"

She raised her voice at each entreaty until it almost reached a shriek,
and then her whole frame seemed to sink down into the bed from
exhaustion.

"Why don't 'ee speak to me, Morley?" she resumed after a short time,
endeavouring to turn her head round.

"Dearest granny," said Nora, gently stroking one of her withered hands,
which lay on the counterpane, "father is away just now. No doubt he
will be back ere long."

"Ay, ay, he's always away; always away," she murmured in a querulous
tone; "always coming back too, but he never