walk.  "Well, so best, so best!  I see now,
though I didn't then, I confess.  I thought I
might have been putting my old foot in it, as I
do sometimes.  So you haven't told her?  Well,
it would only worry the poor thing, after all."

"That was what we thought.  She will know
it in full time; though Heaven knows how we
are to tell her.  Her poor little soul is set upon
being an heiress.  And oh, uncle,"  she went
on, laying down her work, "I have yet worse to
tell you about her."

"Worse?" thundered the captain.

"About three weeks before we came away she
began to complain, all of a sudden, of restless
nights, and that she couldn't lie on her side.
Well, we got the French doctors, and they came
and examined her, and one of them, the cleverest
man in Dieppe, told me plainly that he thought
one of her lungs was 'touched,' and that we must
be very careful of her."

The captain looked wistfully at his shining
copper kettle, now singing merrily on the hob.
"Ah, my dear," he said, "those French doctors
are all botches, regular botches. Surely there was
poor Hammond, who went up with me in the
diligence, and who felt some stings about his heart.
Boulay, the French doctor, told him he couldn't
last a month—not a month.  Well, Hammond
lived twenty years after that, and was sound as
a roach in his heart to the day of his death;
though, to be sure, we might have very well
misunderstood the gentleman, for, between you and
me, my dear, we couldn't muster half-a-crown's
worth of French between us."

"Ah, but, uncle, an English doctor says the
same."

"Well," said he, a little nonplused, "many
of them, too, are botches enough, God knows.  I
tell you what, my dear.  We'll just take a
cab, and go off straight to Doctor Gilpin, as
good a man as ever felt a pulse.  I know
what he'll say.  Little Alice touched, my dear!
Folly!"

Thus he fell very soon with delight into this
new life.  The two girls made him their study,
made little alterations which they thought would
bring him more comfort, little surprises which
threw "the captain" into almost a distress of
gratitude and acknowledgment.

One of those first days he came to the elder
girl.  "I am going to ask you to help me," he
said. "I am afraid they make a fool of me
in shops and such places.  I am sure I give
double what I ought to give.  Now, my dear
child, I want you to help me."

"Dearest uncle," the elder girl said, "this is
kind.  I am so glad you have come to me.  I
was dying to ask you."

"Then here," said he, pulling out his crimson
purse, "would you, then, kindly take charge of
this?  Lay out whatever is enough for the week,
and spare nothing, mind. I like everything of
the very best, and plenty of the best.  It's a way
I have always had.  I'll look after the wine's
myself" uncle Tom added, apologetically.  "For
I think I know a little about wine.  Colonel
Cameron and I always went together to the
vaults to taste.  There, there, you are doing me
a great favour."  And he put the crimson
silk purse into her hands, and limped away
hastily.

The younger girl was still silent and quiet.
That morning she asked her uncle would he come
out and take her for a walk.  She wanted to see
some of the shows of London.  Her uncle was
thankful and grateful for this honour done to
him.  He received this lady's orders with the
old gallantry of Louis the Fourteenth's day.  He
went to fetch his finest apparel, and the bishop's
hat, which lay under a bandanna handkerchief
for occasions of state, and the grey thread gloves,
which rested on the curl of the bishop's hat.
The two sallied out; the bright-looking girl in
deep black leaning on the arm of the gouty,
fierce, half-military old gentleman, who limped
smartly along.

They saw the shows, and spent a pleasant
morning.  Uncle Diamond was thinking wistfully
how he could propose a pastrycook and an
elaborate meal, for he had that fine old chivalry in
him whose creed is that too great honour, in
every way, cannot be paid to a lady who honours
you with attention, and he believed in the now
old-fashioned gallant faith, that ladies, once in
the society of gentlemen, were to be altogether
ignorant of the existence of money.  We now,
it seems, furnish them with a regular
reckoning.

Suddenly the young girl, still leaning on his
arm, looked up into his face.  "And that poor
Mr. Tillotson you were telling us of the other
night.  How dreadful!  I have hardly got it out
of my head.  No wonder he cannot bear to look
back."

"Poor, poor fellow!" said he, in deep
compassion. "I knew you would pity him."

"I saw it all in his face," she went on, "as
we came up in the train.  I was sure there was
some horrible mystery."

"It was scarcely his fault, after all," said he.
"He got into a wild set.  There was a dreadful
fellow who had got influence over him, and
forced him to do as he pleased.  No, no.  Poor
Harry Tillotson!  He never was bad.  I always
took his side."

"I am sure you did, uncle.  And now, is it
not dreadful to think that he should go on this
way so long, and perhaps go on all his life?
How long ago is it?"

"Oh, let me see. November, December,
January.  It must be ten or twelve years ago,
now."

"Why, it will settle on his mind,"  she went
on, eagerly. "It will become a mania.  People
have gone mad before now from dwelling on such
things."

"Very true.  Most sensible, dear,"  said he;
"a very just idea.  And the worst is, what can
we do?  I have tried to reason with him, in my
simple way, over and over again."

"But something should be done," she said,
excitedly.  "His mind should be diverted.  He