ow, that you wouldn't want to
talk about your father." "Why, there's no reason in the world for not
talking of him," she made haste to declare. "And if he's got something
good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is the sort that
ought always to have a good deal of money. I mean, it will bring out his
more amiable qualities. He does not shine much in adversity--any more
than I do."

Thorpe felt keenly that there were fine things to be said here--but he
had confidence in nothing that came to his tongue. "I've been a poor man
all my life--till now," was his eventual remark.

"Please don't tell me that you have been very happy in your poverty,"
she adjured him, with the dim flicker of a returning smile. "Very likely
there are people who are so constituted, but they are not my kind. I
don't want to hear them tell about it. To me poverty is the horror--the
unmentionable horror!"

"There never was a day that I didn't feel THAT!" Thorpe put fervour into
his voice. "I was never reconciled to it for a minute. I never ceased
swearing to myself that I'd pull myself out of it. And that's what
makes me sort of soft-hearted now toward those--toward those who haven't
pulled themselves out of it."

"Your niece says you are soft-hearted beyond example," remarked Lady
Cressage.

"Who could help being, to such a sweet little girl as she is?" demanded
the uncle, fondly.

"She is very nice," said the other. "If one may say such a thing, I
fancy these three months with her have had an appreciable effect upon
you. I'm sure I note a difference."

"That's just what I've been saying to myself!" he told her. He was
visibly delighted with this corroboration. "I've been alone practically
all my life. I had no friends to speak of--I had no fit company--I
hadn't anything but the determination to climb out of the hole. Well,
I've done that--and I've got among the kind of people that I naturally
like. But then there came the question of whether they would like me. I
tell you frankly, that was what was worrying the heart out of me when I
first met you. I like to be confessing it to you now--but you frightened
me within an inch of my life. Well now, you see, I'm not scared of you
at all. And of course it's because Julia's been putting me through a
course of sprouts."

The figure was lost upon Lady Cressage, but the spirit of the remarks
seemed not unpleasant to her. "I'm sure you're full of kindness,"
she said. "You must forget that