had been refreshing to him
to converse in terms of peace with any fellow-mortal; and the ready
satisfaction of this visitor with the method of business adopted by the
Company went far to dispel the uneasy impressions which Mrs Wrigley's
visit had left earlier in the day.

After all, he felt that he was yet on probation. When Christmas came,
and he was able to discuss matters personally with the directors, he had
no doubt his position would be improved. He flattered himself they
might think he was useful enough to be worth while keeping; and in that
case of course he would have a right to ask to be put on rather more
comfortable a footing than he possessed at present, and to be entrusted
with a certain amount of control over the business of the Corporation.
He would also be able mildly to suggest that it would be more convenient
to him to receive his salary monthly than quarterly, so as to enable him
not only to live respectably himself, as became their secretary, but
also to give regular help to his mother at home. As it was, with a
beggarly thirteen shillings a week to live on, he was little better than
a common office-boy, he would have said to himself, but at that
particular moment the door opened, and the very individual whom his
thoughts connected with the words appeared before him.

It was the very last apparition Reginald could have looked for. He had
given up all idea of seeing the young desperado any more.

Though he could not exactly say, "Poverty had come in at the door and
Love had flown out of the window"--for the young gentleman had departed
by the door--he yet had made up his mind that Cupid had taken to himself
wings and flown away, with no intention of ever returning to the scene
of his late struggle.

But a glance at the starved, emaciated figure before him explained very
simply the mystery of this strange apparition. The boy's hands and lips
were blue with cold, and his cheek-bones seemed almost to protrude
through his pallid, grimy cheeks. He looked, in fact, what he was, the
picture of misery, and he had no need of any other eloquence to open the
heart of his late "governor."

"Say, what's yer name," he said, in a hollow imitation of his old voice,
"beg yer pardon, gov'nor--won't do it no more if yer overlook it this
time."

"Come in out of the cold and warm yourself by the fire," said Reginald,
poking it up to a blaze.

The boy obeyed, half timidly. He seemed to be not quite sure whe