ich verged on tears.

"I am very glad to see you again, Jimmy, dear," she said, kissing him a
second time. "And Henry, too, is delighted to have you. Of course, you
have grown a great deal older, but I don't know that you have changed
very much." She scrutinised his face, then noted, with something akin to
dismay, that his clothes, though well cut, were neither new nor
fashionable.

Jimmy, on his part, was trying to readjust his ideas. He had been
picturing May as still rather rosy and inclined to plumpness,
essentially suggestive of good nature and repose; now, he saw her thin,
almost angular, a little hard of feature, though retaining some of her
good looks. In his calculations, he had forgotten the four children she
had brought into the world since he had seen her last.

May asked him a number of questions about himself, his health, and his
doings, hardly waiting for his answers before passing on to something,
fresh, and hardly listening when she did allow him time to reply; then--

"I'll take you up to your room," she said. "Your trunks have gone up
already. I have had to give you one of the smaller spare rooms, because
my sister-in-law will be back to-night--you remember Laura, of
course--and there may be someone else coming to-morrow." At the door of
his room she paused. "Dinner is at half-past seven. We always dress, but
don't you trouble, if you would rather not, or, or----" She stammered a
little.

Jimmy understood. "I always retained my suit through all my ups and
downs," he said with a smile. "It is the one absolute essential. It will
get you credit when nothing else will. Many a time I have gone to an
hotel with only the suit and a lot of old newspapers in my trunk, and
not five dollars in my pocket."

Mrs. Marlow did not smile. Instead, she looked as she felt, shocked and
pained; and as she went downstairs she was casting round for some scheme
to stop Jimmy's flow of reminiscences. It would never do for him to talk
in that way before people like the Graylings or the Bashfords; whilst,
if the servants were to hear him, it would be all round the
neighbourhood in a couple of days that Mrs. Marlow's brother was, or had
been, a penniless adventurer.

Jimmy did not come down till the dinner gong went; consequently, after
he had shaken hands with Henry Marlow, they went straight into the
dining-room, and May lost her chance of saying anything.

Marlow himself was hungry and ate heartily, and the guest was