“Poor little wretch!” muttered the doctor as he went away. “A tramp’s child—a waif cast up by the way. Ah, Hippetts, I was right, you see: it was not for long.”


Chapter Three.

Doctor Grayson’s Theory.

“I want some more.”

“Now, my dear Eddy, I think you have had quite as much as is good for you,” said Lady Danby, shaking her fair curls at her son.

“No, I haven’t, ma. Pa, may I have some pine-apple!”

“Yes, yes, yes, and make yourself ill. Maria, my dear, I wish you wouldn’t have that boy into dessert; one can hardly hear one’s-self speak.”

“Sweet boy!” muttered Dr Grayson of the Manor House, Coleby, as he glanced at Sir James Danby’s hopeful fat-faced son, his mother’s idol, before which she worshipped every day.