ounted by a
flaring mob-cap of various hues and dyes, looked Miss Felicia all over
and replied in a dubious tone:

"He's had a bad mash-up, and I don't think--"

"I am quite aware of it, my dear madam, or I would not be here. Now,
please show me the way to Mr. Breen's room--my brother was here last
night and--"

"Oh, the bald-headed gentleman?" exclaimed Mrs. Hicks. "Such a dear,
kind man; and it was as much as I could do to get him to bed and he a--"

But Miss Felicia was already inside the sitting-room, her critical eyes
noting its bare, forbidding furnishing and appointment--she had not
yet let down her skirts, the floor not being inviting. As each article
passed in review--the unsteady rocking-chairs upholstered in haircloth
and protected by stringy tidies, the disconsolate, almost bottomless
lounge, fly-specked brass clock and mantel ornaments, she could not
but recall the palatial entrance, drawing-room, and boudoir into which
Parkins had ushered her on that memorable afternoon when she had paid
a visit to Mrs. Arthur Breen--(her "last visit" the old lady would
say with a sly grimace at Holker, who had never forgiven "that pirate,
Breen," for robbing Gilbert of his house).

"And this is what this idiot has got in exchange," she said to herself
as she peered into the dining-room beyond, with its bespattered
table-cloth flanked by cheap china plates and ivory napkin rings--the
castors mounting guard at either end.

The entrance of the lady with the transferable hair cut short her
revery.

"Mr. Breen says come up, ma'am," she said in a subdued voice. It was
astonishing how little time it took for Miss Felicia's personality to
have its effect.

Up the uncarpeted stairs marched the great lady, down an equally bare
hall lined on either side by bedroom doors, some marked by unblacked
shoes others by tin trays holding fragments of late or early breakfasts,
the flaring cap obsequiously pointing the way until the two had reached
a door at the end of the corridor.

"Now I won't bother you any more," said Miss Felicia. "Thank you very
much. Are you in here Mr. Breen?" she called in a cheery voice as
she pushed open the door, and advanced to his bedside:--"Oh, you poor
fellow! Oh, I AM so sorry!"

The boy lay on a cot-bed pushed close to the wall. His face was like
chalk; his eyes deep set in his head; his scalp one criss-cross of
bandages, and his right hand and wrist a misshapen lump of cotton
wadding and splin