ristopher, having ascertained from a suspicious doorkeeper that Mrs.
Sartin would not be free for twenty minutes, cooled his heels in a
dark, draughty passage with what patience he could.

He seized on Mrs. Sartin as she came unsuspectingly down a winding
stair, and bore her off breathless, remonstrating, but fluttering with
pride, in a hansom.

"I'm only up for a few days," he explained. "Sam dines with me
to-morrow and I want you to come out somewhere in the afternoon.
Crystal Palace, or wherever Jessie likes."

Mrs. Sartin's face and Mrs. Sartin's person had expanded in the last
few years and her powers of expressing emotion seemed to have expanded
with her person. Disappointment was writ large on her ample
countenance.

"Well, now, if that isn't a shame and a contrariwise of purpose. I've
taken a job, Mr. Christopher, for that blessed afternoon. I've
promised to dress Miss Asty, who is making a debut at a matiny at the
Court. Eliza Lowden, she was goin' to dress her, but she can't set a
wig as I can."

"What a nuisance. But, anyhow, Jessie isn't engaged, is she?"

For an instant he had a glimpse of Mrs. Sartin's full face, dubious,
questioning, even hostile, but to him it was merely the result of
flickering light and conveyed nothing.

"I don't rightly know," she said slowly, "maybe she doesn't care much
for gadding about."

"Rubbish," he retorted contemptuously, "if you can't come, Jessie must
anyway."

Mrs. Sartin held firmly to the carriage door and the oscillation of
the cab caused her to nod violently, but it was not in assent to
Christopher's proposition. She appeared to be turning something over
in her slow mind.

"I don't know but what I could arrange with Eliza," she remarked.

"Of course you can, like a good woman; and you and Jessie come up to
Aston House at one o'clock and say where you'd like to go, and we'll
go."

Martha demurred. "Mr. Aston won't like it."

"Won't like what?"

"Our comin' to 'is 'ouse, like as if we 'ad any claim on you."

"Do I or you know Mr. Aston best?" he demanded imperiously. "Claim
indeed. Martha, you dear old stupid, where would I be now, if you
hadn't taken my mother in?"

"That were just a chance, Mr. Christopher, because I 'appened to be
comin' 'ome late and your pore ma was took bad on the bridge as I
crossed, and bein' a woman what 'ad a family, I saw what was the
matter."

"What was it more than a chance that Caesar in looking for a boy to
adopt