d the questioner smiled, not ill-pleased.

At last they came to a standstill before the door of the Whitmansworth
Union. Jim, with a prodigious sigh, prepared to descend. The glorious
adventure was over. Also he prepared to slip away to a more lowly
entrance, but was stopped by a retaining hand.

The porter, no friend of Jim's, stared with dull amazement at the
apparition of the fine turn-out, and the still finer gentleman waiting
on the doorstep with that little "varmint" of a Hibbault. He signed to
the boy angrily to begone, as he ushered the visitor in.

"The boy will stay with me," said the owner of the phaeton quietly,
and they were accordingly shown into that solemn sanctum, the Board
Room. It was a cheerful room with flowers in the window and a long
green-covered table with comfortable chairs on each side, but it
struck a cold note of discomfort in Jim's heart. The first time he had
entered it, about six months ago, the chairs had been occupied by ten
more or less portly gentlemen who informed him that his mother, now
being dead (she had died two days previously), they had decided to
give him a home for the present, and would educate him and teach him a
trade, and that he should be very grateful and must be a good boy.

Jim had said tearfully he would rather go back to London and Mrs.
Sartin, which appeared to surprise them very much, and they were at
some pains to point out the advantages of a country life, which did
not appeal to him at all. Then one of them, who had not spoken
before, said abruptly, "his mother had wished him to stay there, and
there was an end of it."

That was six months ago. Jim remembered it all very distinctly as he
waited with his companion in the Board Room.

Mr. Moss bustled in: he was a stout, cheerful man of hasty temper, but
withal a man one could deal with--through his wife--in Jim's
estimation.

He held the card the visitor had sent in between his fingers and
looked flurried and surprised. Jim noticed he bowed to the stranger,
but did not offer to shake hands as he did with the doctor and parson
and the few rare visitors the boy had observed. So Jim concluded _his_
gentleman was a very great gentleman indeed, as he had all along
suspected.

"My name is Aston--Charles Aston"--said the owner of the phaeton in
his pleasant voice. "I have driven down from London to make inquiries
about a small boy I have reason to believe came under your care about
seven months ago: Hibbault