most painfully. I don't
think I ever saw any sight so simply and irresistibly touching as the
sight of those two poor young creatures sitting hand in hand, waiting the
event which was to make the happiness or the misery of their future
lives.

"Have you seen anything of your brother?" I asked, putting the question
in as careless a tone as my devouring anxiety would allow me to assume.

"Nugent has gone to meet Herr Grosse."

Oscar's eyes once more encountered mine, as he replied in those terms; I
saw again the imploring look more marked in them than ever. It was plain
to him, as it was plain to me, that Nugent had gone to meet the German,
with the purpose of making Herr Grosse the innocent means of bringing him
into the house.

Before I could speak again, Mr. Finch, recovering himself after the
interruption which had silenced him, saw his opportunity of setting in
for another harangue. Mrs. Finch had left off sobbing; the baby had left
off screaming; the rest of us were silent and nervous. In a word, Mr.
Finch's domestic congregation was entirely at Mr. Finch's mercy. He
strutted up to Oscar's chair. Was he going to propose to read _Hamlet?_
No! He was going to invoke a blessing on Oscar's head.

"On this interesting occasion," began the rector in his pulpit tones;
"now that we are all united in the same room, all animated by the same
hope--I could wish, as pastor and parent (God bless you, Oscar: I look on
you as a son. Mrs. Finch, follow my example, look on him as a son!)--I
could wish, as pastor and parent, to say a few pious and consoling
words----"

The door--the friendly, admirable, judicious door--stopped the coming
sermon, in the nick of time, by opening again. Herr Grosse's squat figure
and owlish spectacles appeared on the threshold. And behind him (exactly
as I had anticipated) stood Nugent Dubourg.

Lucilla turned deadly pale: she had heard the door open, she knew by
instinct that the surgeon had come. Oscar got up, stole behind my chair,
and whispered to me, "For God's sake, get Nugent out of the room!" I gave
him a reassuring squeeze of the hand, and, putting Jicks down on the
floor, rose to welcome our good Grosse.

The child, as it happened, was beforehand with me. She and the
illustrious oculist had met in the garden at one of the German's
professional visits to Lucilla, and had taken an amazing fancy to each
other. Herr Grosse never afterwards appeared at the rectory without some
unwholesome