“Yes,” he muttered, as Helen clung to him, and tried to console,—“yes, you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;” and his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom.
The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr. Morgan.
The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered her father; and the tears that for Leonard’s sake she had been trying to suppress found way.
The good doctor soon gained all the confidence of these two young hearts; and after listening to Leonard’s story of his paradise lost in a day, he patted him on the shoulder and said, “Well, you will call on me on Monday, and we will see. Meanwhile, borrow these of me!”—and he tried to slip three sovereigns into the boy’s hand. Leonard was indignant. The bookseller’s warning flashed on him. Mendicancy! Oh, no, he had not yet come to that! He was almost rude and savage in his rejection; and the doctor did not like him the less for it.
“You are an obstinate mule,” said the homoeopathist, reluctantly putting up his sovereigns. “Will you work at something practical and prosy, and let the poetry rest a while?”
“Yes,” said Leonard, doggedly. “I will work.”
“Very well, then. I know an honest bookseller, and he shall give you some employment; and meanwhile, at all events, you will be among books, and that will be some comfort.”
Leonard’s eyes brightened. “A great comfort, sir.” He pressed the hand he had before put aside to his grateful heart.
“But,” resumed the doctor, seriously, “you really feel a strong predisposition to make verses?”
“I did, sir.”