nd
pacific look, have seemed almost inhuman. Poor Mr. Longdon had finally
to do his own simple best. "Will you bring your daughter to see me?" he
asked of Mrs. Brookenham.

"Oh, oh--that's an idea: will you bring her to see ME?" Mr. Cashmore
again broke out.

Mrs. Brook had only fixed Mr. Longdon with the air of unutterable
things. "You angel, you angel!"--they found expression but in that.

"I don't need to ask you to bring her, do I?" Vanderbank now said to his
hostess. "I hope you don't mind my bragging all over the place of the
great honour she did me the other day in appearing quite by herself."

"Quite by herself? I say, Mrs. Brook!" Mr. Cashmore flourished on.

It was only now that she noticed him; which she did indeed but by
answering Vanderbank. "She didn't go for YOU I'm afraid--though of
course she might: she went because you had promised her Mr. Longdon. But
I should have no more feeling about her going to you--and should expect
her to have no more--than about her taking a pound of tea, as she
sometimes does, to her old nurse, or her going to read to the old women
at the workhouse. May you never have less to brag of!"

"I wish she'd bring ME a pound of tea!" Mr. Cashmore resumed. "Or ain't
I enough of an old woman for her to come and read to me at home?"

"Does she habitually visit the workhouse?" Mr. Longdon enquired of Mrs.
Brook.

This lady kept him in a moment's suspense, which another contemplation
might moreover have detected that Vanderbank in some degree shared.
"Every Friday at three."

Vanderbank, with a sudden turn, moved straight to one of the windows,
and Mr. Cashmore had a happy remembrance. "Why, this is Friday--she must
have gone to-day. But does she stay so late?"

"She was to go afterwards to little Aggie: I'm trying so, in spite of
difficulties," Mrs. Brook explained, "to keep them on together." She
addressed herself with a new thought to Mr. Longdon. "You must know
little Aggie--the niece of the Duchess: I forget if you've met the
Duchess, but you must know HER too--there are so many things on which
I'm sure she'll feel with you. Little Aggie's the one," she continued;
"you'll delight in her; SHE ought to have been mamma's grandchild."

"Dearest lady, how can you pretend or for a moment compare her--?" Mr.
Cashmore broke in. "She says nothing to me at all."

"She says nothing to any one," Mrs. Brook serenely replied; "that's just
her type and her charm--just above all her ed