“THAT doesn’t sound like a creditor with a bill to-night,” said Mr. Kayll, laughing and rubbing his hands softly over his knees. “But if so, mother’s ready for him.” And he slapped his pocket meaningly. “Jack, my boy, you go and open. Your sister looks as though she’d done about enough for to-day.”

Jack obeyed. He opened the door rather doubtfully a little way to begin with, and then, hearing and seeing nothing, somewhat wider, when he saw before him a small girl, apparently about as old as his sister Edie.He looked at her, but she did not speak.

“What do you want?” he asked, after waiting a minute.

“Does Mr. Kayll live here?” she inquired then in a voice that trembled with nervousness.

“Yes, he does.”

“Could I see him?”

“I suppose so. Come in,” said Jack gruffly, and she stepped timidly inside, when he shut the door behind her and put his head into the sitting-room.

“Little girl wants to speak to you, father.”

“Little girl! What little girl? What’s her name?”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Ask her then, my boy.”

Jack’s head disappeared, but reappeared almost directly, and he said:

“Amy Coleson.”

“Coleson!” repeated his father with a start of surprise. “Tell her to come in here.”

And the next instant Jack ushered in the visitor, who looked at the floor and seemed dazzled by the lamp-light which showed her to be a pretty child with soft yellow hair and fair white skin, but poorly or rather miserably clad in a black frock worn through at the elbows and in many a place beside. She was so thin in the face, too, that it was quite painful to look at her.

Mr. Kayll took her by the hand, drew her to him, and kissed her.

“Well, this is a surprise!” he said. “Little Amy Coleson! Grown exactly like her mother, too, only thinner. Jack, bring her a chair. Mother, isn’t she like what Amy used to be?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Kayll, resting one hand on her husband’s shoulder, and thoughtfully looking at the child. “Dear, dear, how time flies! It must be eight years since we saw her last. Boys, you’ve heard of your father’s cousin Amy. This is her little girl.”

“And where have you dropped from?” Mr. Kayll asked next. “What brings you to us alone at nearly nine o’clock at night?”

“Mother was afraid I shouldn’t find you at home if I came earlier,” said the child, nervously twisting her hands together, and letting her large blue eyes wander from one to another of the wondering faces around her, for Madge and Jem were staring at her without disguise, and Bob and Jack stole furtive glances every now and again.

“And how is mother?” Mr. Kayll asked, beginning to have some suspicion as to the meaning of this visit. “I haven’t even heard from her for years and years.”

“She’s not very well. She never is very well,” was the shy answer. “She always has such a bad cough.”

“And father?”

“Father died a long time ago,” she said simply, with a downward glance at her shabby and ragged black frock.

“Dead! Dear me! Tut, tut, tut!” said Mr. Kayll, very much shocked. “Poor child! Poor little woman! that’s very sad. Dear me!” he repeated, while his wife looked at the wan little figure until the tears came into her eyes. As for Madge, not being able to show her sympathy in any other way, she sat down and drew her little cousin on to her knee.“Mother sent me,” said Amy Coleson from that perch as she gathered more courage, “to ask you if you would lend us a little money, because we are so dreadfully poor, and—and baby’s so ill;” here her voice trembled, but she recovered herself directly and went on, “and we can’t get her anything she ought to have.”

Mr. Kayll looked grave.

“How old is the baby?” his wife asked.

“Three; but she can’t walk yet. She has never been strong.”

There was something very old and womanly about Amy’s way of saying this that showed plainly how she was her mother’s companion and help, and had lost her childishness in the anxiety of needing money, an anxiety that makes children old before they are grown up.

“And how many more of you are there?” Mrs. Kayll inquired, as her husband seemed to be still thinking.

“There’s Kitty,” she said. “That’s all; mother and Kitty, baby and me. Kitty’s only four.”“What have you been living on since you lost your father, my dear?” Mr. Kayll asked, suddenly looking up, for he had been staring very hard at the boards of the floor where they were visible through a hole in the carpet.

The little girl coloured faintly.

“Mother used to take sewing, but she has been so ill and so busy nursing baby that she hasn’t been able to do any. We haven’t had any money lately except what I’ve earned, but we can do with very little,” she concluded pathetically. And then guessing at the question that was coming, she added: “I’m a model.”

“A what?”

“I sit for painters to draw and paint me,” she said, “when they want me, but that isn’t always, and the last week or two I haven’t been wanted at all. And mother thought perhaps you’d help us a little until—until—I get something to do again, or mother is better and can take in sewing.”

Mr. Kayll stared at the boards again for a few minutes in silence. The child’s story was a sad one undoubtedly, yet how could he help her with such a large family of his own? But again, when he compared the round healthy faces of his children with that of this pale sharp-featured little creature, and reflected that she was fatherless, and had already to support others by her own efforts, he felt that he could not refuse her request. Fatherless! What would become of his little ones had they not him to work for them?

“Madge,” he said rising, “get the girl a sandwich. She must be hungry after her journey. By the way, where do you come from? Where do you live now?”

“At Wingate Row, Bacton,” she answered.

“But you’re not going back there to-night?”

“Oh, yes, I am!” she said quickly. “I must. It isn’t much after nine, and it’s only half an hour’s walk.”

He asked her one or two more questions, then giving his wife a look that she understood, he led the way from the room, she following, when they had a little private conversation in the kitchen, leaving the visitor to eat the sandwiches Madge brought her, and to be stared at by the wondering boys.

In the kitchen five pounds passed back into Mr. Kayll’s purse, as a result of the few words with his wife. Then they both returned and found Amy Coleson standing up, apparently anxious to be gone.

“Come, my child,” said Mr. Kayll. “I’ll take you home and talk to your mother myself; that will be the best way. When you’re ready I am.”

She coloured up to the roots of her hair with pleasure, for she had begun to think her visit was to have no result at all.

“I am ready now,” she said, raising her face to kiss first Madge, then Mrs. Kayll, and then laying her hand confidingly in his. “Good-bye,” and she glanced at the rest with a nod that was meant for them all at once, and began to move towards the door. Mr. Kayll lingered only to say good-night to the children, as they would be in bed before his return, and looked round at their bright faces with a smile. It was a pleasant picture, one that he would perhaps have looked at yet once more if he had known that he would never enter that room again.

The next minute he and the child were gone. Then began a buzz of talk and wonderment, and Madge cleared away the supper-things with her head so full of other thoughts that she nearly put the cheese into the bread-pan and the loaf away on the same dish with the bacon.