"No one has lent me this money," Arthur
said; "I have earned it all. Doctor Peregrine
knows it; Doctor Peregrine will tell you how
it was earned. Sir, when I was a little lad, you
told me here—in this very shop—standing
where we now stand—that my father—God
bless him!—was not an honest man. You said
there was no honesty in the blood. You said I
should turn out bad, like the rest of us! I was
but young then—only thirteen. When you
said those cruel words of my dead father, I
resolved that I would never rest till I had paid
you, and proved them false. It has been hard
to do; so hard, that it has changed my whole
nature, I often think. No one knows what I
have gone through—not a living creature but
myself! but I would have gone through fifty
times as much to pay that debt! I thank God
that I have lived to pay it, and to clear my
father's memory."

I write this now; I write the words I heard
him speak, but I can no more give a notion of
their effect than I could if I had never heard
them. He, at all times so subdued, so self-possessed,
so impossible to rouse, was suddenly
transformed into another creature. Form, voice,
countenance—all changed. His words came
forth rapidly. The pent-up emotions of those
four toiling, self-denying years, found a vent at
last.

"And now, sir! now!" Arthur cried, raising
his thin hand with a gesture that thrilled through
my very heart; "believe me, who have never
wilfully uttered one false word from the hour
when you did us that cruel wrong—my father
was an honest man. I say it in my Maker's
presence. Perhaps in his!"

Arthur stopped short; for he found himself
suddenly seized by the powerful grasp of Mr.
Moreen, and whirled, rather than drawn, to the
window.

""Well, but you know," said the upholsterer,
drawing him nearer, and then holding him
further off, as you would a picture you were
examining in different lights; but all the while
clenching him in his tremendous hand as in a
vice. "You're a grand fellow, you are! You
pay your father's debts, do ye? But you're a
grand fellow! What? You laid by to pay me,
did ye? all these years! Why! you are a
grand fellow! You did it, did' ye? And I
said you weren't honest. Well! I wish I'd
been——I wish my tongue had been cut out
before I said it. But you know you are honest.
You! a little lad as you was. You pay the old
man's debt. Yes! you have—you have paid it.
Oh! but you're a grand fellow."

Ringing the changes on these words—unable
to express the feelings that were bursting his
heart—upheaving his broad chest choking his
voice—the tears rained down the honest man's
cheeks, and he knew it no more than did Mrs.
Moreen, sitting at work with her girls above
stairs.

Mr. Moreen's emotion had the natural effect
of calming Arthur's. The poor lad was passive
in his grasp. But after a time the worthy
upholsterer began to return as it were to himself.
He relaxed his hold; and taking out his
pocket-handkerchief, wiped his eyes and face.

"I ask pardon, sir," he said, turning to me,
and speaking in a low and apologetic tone; "I
ask pardon, I'm sure; but I'm—I'm—I never
was so I never see such a thing as this before.
It took me unprepared, you see. I didn't look
for such a thing. Not at all. And to think—
to think that them words of mine should have
cut so deep a poor young lad like that—that's
where it is, you see." Then, turning to Arthur,
"You're a grand fellow, sir!"

Strange—the effect of that "sir" in Mr.
Moreen's mouth, as addressed to Arthur Bentmore.
How well I understood it: better than
he did himself. It was the involuntary,
unconscious homage paid to the honesty of that
stripling, by the sturdy tradesman who valued
honesty above all earthly treasures.

"But you know I can't take it, sir!" Mr.
Moreen suddenly exclaimed, when he had be-
come more cool; recalled to the consideration
of the money by the sight of it spread out on
the buhl table. "I can't take them earnings
and savings of that lad's. It can't be. The
thing ain't in nature. Mrs. M. herself, she
wouldn't hear of it."

This was the signal for fresh excitement. A
keen dispute followed this declaration, during
which it was difficult to say which showed the
most determined spirit, Mr. Moreen or Arthur.
But it was clear to me that the latter must in
the end prevail.

VII.

As soon as his month's notice to leave Lady
Fetherstone's service had expired, Arthur Bentmore
came to my house to be attended
professionally, and, if need be, nursed. It was high
time he should do so. He had tasked his
constitution too severely. He had grown too fast,
worked too hard, and slept too little. Now that
the excitement was over which had hitherto
borne him up under every trial, he collapsed.
There was a reaction.

When at last I had the happiness of seeing him
really restored to health, I proposed to him to
remain with me as my servant. The plan was
precisely what he wished. But after six months' trial
of him, I made up my mind that I must give him
notice. It went against my conscience to keep
him. As a servant, Arthur Bentmore was
entirely thrown away. He was intended for
higher things. He had a mind capable of
mastering almost any subject, and would do
honour to any position. Ever since the day of
that last memorable visit to my consulting-room,
his reserve with me had entirely disappeared.
His confidence had been indeed hard to gain;
but once gained, it was given wholly, and for
ever. He felt towards me now, as towards a
father. I had entered into, and sympathised
with, the strongest feeling of his nature; I had
rejoiced for, and in him, on the one great
occasion of his life; and from that hour he was
bound to me by the strongest of all ties.

I had mentioned his touching story to persons