'In the study with his Wapsie. Mrs. Woolaston, she is such a kind soul,
lent him such a beautiful old picture book--"Woodward's Eccentricities"
it is called--and he's quite happy--little Fairy, on his little stool at
the window.'

'No headache or fever?' asked Miss Lake cheerfully, though, she knew not
why, there seemed something ominous in this little ailment.

'None at all; oh, none, thank you; none in the world. I'd be so
frightened if there was. But, thank Heaven, Doctor Buddle says there's
nothing to make us at all uneasy. My blessed little man! And he has his
canary in the cage in the window, and his kitten to play with in the
study. He's quite happy.'

'Please Heaven, he'll be quite well to-morrow--the darling little man,'
said Rachel, all the more fondly for that vague omen that seemed to say,
'He's gone.'

'Here's Mr. Larkin!' cried Dolly, jumping up, and smiling and nodding at
the window to that long and natty apparition, who glided to the hall-door
with a sad smile, raising his well-brushed hat as he passed, and with one
grim glance beyond Mrs. Wylder, for his sharp eye half detected another
presence in the room.

He was followed, not accompanied--for Mr. Larkin knew what a gentleman he
was--by a young and bilious clerk, with black hair and a melancholy
countenance, and by old Buggs--his conducting man--always grinning, whose
red face glared in the little garden like a great bunch of hollyhocks. He
was sober as a judge all the morning, and proceeded strictly on the
principle of business first, and pleasure afterward. But his orgies, when