“Stay all night, Dick.” And old Mrs. Lyon added:
“Stay and spend the Christmas holidays with us, Dick.”
So Mr. Richard stayed, and sent for his portmanteau from the hotel where he had stopped on his first coming to the city.
And having the freedom of the house, he took more liberties in it than any one else would dare to do—going into any part of it, and at any hour he pleased; popping in and out of the chief justice’s secluded study, and breaking up his naps; popping in and out of the old lady’s sacred dressing-room, and startling her in the midst of the mysterious rites of the toilet; and bouncing in and out of the housekeeper’s room, the pantry or the kitchen, to the serious discomfiture of the manager, the butler and the cook.
Yet everybody loved Dick, so long as the influence of his frank manners, sunny smile, and sweet voice was upon them. But when that was withdrawn, and they were left to their sober reason, they strongly disapproved of him.
“Little pitchers have long ears and wide mouths,” says the proverb. And the little pitcher in Mrs. Sterling’s private apartment was no exception to the general rule. Sitting stitching at her patch-work, she often heard Mr. Richard’s shortcomings discussed, and she pitied him, for she thought that he had wandered away very far from the fold, and was in a very bad way indeed.
One day when poor Dick popped into the housekeeper’s room, to ask for some brandy and salt to dip the wick of his candles in, to make “corpse lights” for ghosts to carry, and scare the maids with, he found no one there but the child, sitting in the corner and stitching patch-work as usual.
She looked up at him solemnly, and nearly annihilated him with the following appalling question:
“Young man, are you one of the lost sheep of the House of Israel?”
“Eh?” exclaimed Dick, starting.