airly filled, chiefly with working men, some
of whom had turned into it as being a trifle less hot and noisy than the
baking pavements without, crowded with quarrelsome children. It was,
moreover, the pay-night for a Providence club which Felix had
established for any, either men or women, who chose to contribute to it.
There was a short and simple lecture given first; and afterwards the
club-books were brought out, and a committee of working men received the
weekly subscriptions, and attended to the affairs of the little club.

The lecture was near its close, when a drunken man, in the quarrelsome
stage of intoxication, stumbled in through the open door. Felix knew him
by sight well; a confirmed drunkard, a mere miserable sot, who hung
about the spirit-vaults, and lived only for the drink he could pour down
his throat. There had been a vague instinctive dread and disgust for the
man, mingled with a deep interest he could not understand, in Felix's
mind. He paused for an instant, looking at the dirty rags, and bleared
eyes, and degraded face of the drunkard standing just in the doorway,
with the summer's light behind him.

"What's the parson's name?" he called in a thick, unsteady voice. "Is it
Sefton?"

"Hush! hush!" cried two or three voices in answer.

"I'll not hush! If it's Sefton, it were his father as made me what I am.
It were his father as stole every blessed penny of my earnings. It were
his father as drove me to drink, and ruined me, soul and body. Sefton!
I've a right to know the name of Sefton if any man on earth does. Curse
it!"

Felix had ceased speaking, and stood facing his little congregation,
listening as in a dream. The men caught the drunken accuser by the arms,
and were violently expelling him, but his rough voice rose above the
noise of the scuffle.

"Ay!" he shouted, "the parson won't hear the truth told. But take care
of your money, mates, or it'll go where mine went."

"Don't turn him out," called Felix; "it's a mistake, my men. Let him
alone. He never knew my father."

The drunkard turned round and confronted him, and the little assembly
was quiet again, with an intense quietness, waiting to hear what would
follow.

"Your father's name was Roland Sefton?" said the drunkard.

"Yes," answered Felix.

"And he was banker of the Old Bank at Riversborough?" he asked.

"Yes," said Felix.

"Then what I've got to say is this," went on the rough, thick voice of
the half-drunken man; "an