Alfred smiled, it was said so drolly; but his mother, who felt a little as if she were being laughed at, said, ’Why, Sir, my brother’s name was Alfred; and as to Harold, it was to please Miss Jane’s little sister that died—­she was quite a little girl then, Sir, but so clever, and she would have him named out of her History of England.’

‘Did Miss Selby give you those flowers?’ said Mr. Cope, admiring the rose and geranium in the cup on the table.

‘Yes, Sir;’ and Mrs. King launched out in the praises of Miss Jane and of my Lady, an inexhaustible subject which did not leave Alfred much time to speak, till Mrs. King, seeing the groom from the Park coming with the letter-bag through the rain, asked Mr. Cope to excuse her, and went down-stairs.

‘Well, Alfred, I think you are a lucky boy,’ he said.  ’I was comparing you with a lad I once knew of, who got his spine injured, and is laid up in a little narrow garret, in a back street, with no one to speak to all day.  I don’t know what he would not give for a sister, and a window like this, and a Miss Jane.’

Alfred smiled, and said, ‘Please, Sir, how old is he?’

’About sixteen; a nice stout lad he was, as ever I knew, till his accident; I often used to meet him going about with his master, and thought it was a pleasure to meet such a good-humoured face.’

Alfred ventured to ask his trade, and was told he was being brought up to wait on his father, who was a bricklayer, but that a ladder had fallen with him as he was going up with a heavy load, and he had been taken at once to the hospital.  The house on which he was employed belonged to a friend of Mr. Cope, and all in the power of this gentleman had been done for him, but that was not much, for it was one of the families that no one can serve; the father drank, and the mother was forced to be out charing all day, and was so rough a woman, that she could hardly be much comfort to poor Jem when she was at home.

Alfred was quite taken up with the history by this time, and kept looking at Mr. Cope, as if he would eat it up with his eager eyes.  Ellen asked compassionately who did for the poor boy all day.

’His mother runs in at dinner-time, if she is not at work too far off, and he has a jug of water and a bit of bread where he can reach them; the door is open generally, so that he can call to some of the other lodgers, but though the house is as full as a bee-hive, often nobody hears him.  I believe his great friend is a little school-girl, who comes and sits by him, and reads to him if she can; but she is generally at school, or else minding the children.’

‘It must be very lonely,’ said Alfred, perceiving for the first time that there could be people worse off than himself; ’but has he no books to read?’

’He was so irregularly sent to school, that he could not read to himself, even if his corner were not so dark, and the window so dingy.  My friend gave him a Bible, but he could not get on with it; and his mother, I am sorry to say, pawned it.’