eak
the more confidentially and kindly. 'Be open with me, Uncle, if there
is, and tell me all about it.'

'No, no, no,' returned Old Sol. 'More than usual? No, no. What should
there be the matter more than usual?'

Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. 'That's what I
want to know,' he said, 'and you ask me! I'll tell you what, Uncle, when
I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.'

Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily.

'Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been with
you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with anything
in your mind.'

'I am a little dull at such times, I know,' observed Solomon, meekly
rubbing his hands.

'What I mean, Uncle Sol,' pursued Walter, bending over a little more
to pat him on the shoulder, 'is, that then I feel you ought to have,
sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice little
dumpling of a wife, you know,--a comfortable, capital, cosy old lady,
who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you, and keep you
in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was (I am sure I
ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such a companion
to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have made herself,
years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could cheer you up.
And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind, that I feel
quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than a blundering
young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will to console you,
Uncle, but hasn't got the way--hasn't got the way,' repeated Walter,
reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the hand.

'Wally, my dear boy,' said Solomon, 'if the cosy little old lady had
taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never could
have been fonder of her than I am of you.'

'I know that, Uncle Sol,' returned Walter. 'Lord bless you, I know that.
But you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable secrets
if she had been with you, because she would have known how to relieve
you of 'em, and I don't.'

'Yes, yes, you do,' returned the Instrument-maker.

'Well then, what's the matter, Uncle Sol?' said Walter, coaxingly.
'Come! What's the matter?'

Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and
maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to make
a very indifferent imitation of believing him.

'All I c