Aunt Hilary fixed¹ her honest eyes on the lad's face—the lad, so little younger than herself, and yet who at tunes², when he let out sayings such as this, seemed so awfully³, so pitifully old; and she felt thankful that, at all risks and costs, they had come to London to be beside him, to help him, to save him, if he needed saving, as women only can. For, after all, he was but a boy. And though as he walked by her side, stalwart and manly⁴, the thought smote⁵ her painfully that many a young fellow of his age was the stay and bread winner of some widowed mother or sister, nay⁶ even of wife and child, still she repeated cheerfully. "What can one expect from him? He is only a boy."  
God help the women who, for those belonging to them—husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons—have ever so tenderly to apologize.
 
When they came in sight of St. Pancras's Church, Ascott said, suddenly, "I think you'll knew your way now, Aunt Hilary."
 
"Certainly. Why?"
 
"Because—you wouldn't be vexed⁷ if I left you? I have an engagement; some fellows that I dine with, out at Hampstead, or Richmond, or Blackwell, every Sunday. Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you know it's capital for one's health to get a Sunday in fresh air."
 
"Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you."
 
"Will she? Oh, you'll smooth her down. Stay! Tell her I shall be back to tea."
 
"We shall be having tea directly."
 
"I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt Hilary, you must change your hours. They don't suit me at all. No men can ever stand early dinners. By, by! You are the very prettiest auntie. Be sure you get home safe. Hollo, there! That's my omnibus."
 
He jumped on the top of it, and was off.
 
Aunt Hilary stood quite confounded, and with one of those strange sinkings of the heart which had come over her several times this day. It was not that Ascott showed any unkindness—that there was any actual badness in his bright and handsome young face. Still there was a want there—want of earnestness, steadfastness⁸, truthfulness⁹, a something more discoverable as the lack of something else than as aught in itself tangibly¹⁰ and perceptibly wrong. It made her sad; it caused her to look forward to his future with an anxious heart. It was so different from the kind of anxiety, and yet settled repose¹¹, with which she thought of the only other man in whose future she felt the smallest interest. Of Robert Lyon, she was certain that whatever misfortune visited him he would bear it in the best way it could be borne; whatever temptation assailed¹² him he would fight against it as a brave and good Christian¹³ should fight. But Ascott?
 
Ascott's life was as yet an unanswered query¹⁴. She could but leave it in Omnipotent¹⁵ hands.
 
So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of civil policemen, and going a little distance round—dare I make this romantic confession¹⁶ about so sensible and practical a little woman?—that she might walk once up Burton Street and down again. But nobody knew the fact, and it did nobody any harm.
 
Meantime at No 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough. Miss Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the lady always required, had descended¹⁷ to the dreary¹⁸ wash house, which had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a "private kitchen," in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury. Already, from her brief experience, she had decided¹⁹ that London people were horrid²⁰ shams²¹, because they did not in the least care to have their kitchens comfortable. She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and might have carried her sad and sullen²² face up stairs, if Miss Leaf had not come down stairs, and glancing about with that ever gentle smile of hers, said kindly²³, "Well, it is not very pleasant, but you have made the best of it, Elizabeth. We must all put up with something, you know. Now, as my eyes are not very good to-day, suppose you come up and read me a chapter."
 
So, in the quiet parlor²⁴, the maid sat down opposite her mistress, and read aloud out of that Book which says distinctly: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ: knowing, that whatsoever²⁵ good thing a man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free."
 
And yet says immediately after: "Ye masters, to the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."
 
And I think that Master whom Paul served, not in preaching only, but also in practice, when he sent back the slave Onesimus to Philemon, praying that he might be received, "no' now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved," that Divine Master must have looked tenderly upon these two women—both women, though of such different age and position, and taught them through His Spirit in His word, as only He can teach.
 
The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to the door, and a knock, a tremendously grand and forcible footman's knock, which made Miss Leaf start in her easy chair.
 
"But it can't be visitors to us. We know nobody. Sit still,
Elizabeth."
It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity²⁶ he found them out remained, when they came to think of it, a great puzzle. A card was sent in by the dirty servant of Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by a stout²⁷, bald headed, round faced man—I suppose I ought to write "gentleman"—in whom, though she had not seen him for years, Miss Leaf found no difficulty in recognizing the grocer's prentice boy, now Mr. Peter Ascott, of Russell Square.
 
She rose to receive him: there was always a stateliness in Miss Leaf's reception of strangers; a slight formality belonging to her own past generation, and to the time when the Leafs were a "county family." Perhaps this extra dignity, graceful²⁸ as it was, overpowered the little man; or else, being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to ladies' society: but he grew red in the face, twiddled his hat, and then cast a sharp inquisitive²⁹ glance toward her.
 
"Miss Leaf, I presume, ma'am. The eldest³⁰?"
 
"I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad to have an opportunity of thanking you for your long kindness to my nephew. Elizabeth, give Mr. Ascott a chair."
 
While doing so, and before her disappearance³¹, Elizabeth took a rapid observation of the visitor, whose name and history were perfectly³² familiar to her. Most small towns have their hero, and Stowbury's was Peter Ascott, the grocer's boy, the little fellow who had gone up to London to seek his fortune, and had, strange to say, found it. Whether by industry or luck—except that industry is luck, and luck is only another word for industry—he had gradually risen to be a large city merchant, a dry-salter I conclude it would be called, with a handsome house, carriage, etc. He had never revisited his native place, which indeed could not be expected of him, as he had no relations, but, when asked, as was not seldom of course, he subscribed³³ liberally to its charities.
 
Altogether he was a decided hero in the place, and though people really knew very little about him, the less they knew the more they gossiped, holding him up to the rising generation as a modern Dick Whittington, and reverencing³⁴ him extremely as one who had shed glory on his native town. Even Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. Ascott. When she saw this little fat man, coarse and common looking in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a curious mixture of pomposity³⁵ and awkwardness, she laughed to herself, thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about whom Stowbury had told so many interesting stories. However, she went up to inform Miss Selina, and prevent her making her appearance before him in the usual Sunday dishabille in which she indulged when no visitors were expected.
 
After his first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became quite at his ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk—not of Stowbury, that was tacitly ignored by both—but of London, and then of "my house in Russell Square," "my carriage," "my servants"—the inconvenience of keeping coachmen who would drink, and footmen who would not clean the plate properly; ending by what was a favorite moral axiom of his, that "wealth and position are heavy responsibilities."
 
He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite overwhelmed by them; he was fat and flourishing—with an acuteness and power in the upper half of his face which accounted for his having <............