"Charles, go to the carriage and tell Mrs. Brightman that we don't know how long it may be before Mr. Brightman comes in," said he.
I rather wondered why he could not go himself as I took out the message to Mrs. Brightman.
She had a fair proud face, and her air was cold and haughty as she listened to me.
"Let this be given to him as soon as he comes in," she said, handing me a sealed note. "Regent Street; Carbonell's," she added to the footman.
As the carriage turned and bowled away, I caught the child's pretty face, a smile on her rosy lips and in her laughing brown eyes.
I may as well say here that young Lake had struck up an acquaintanceship with me. The reader may remember that I saw him at the chambers of Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar. I grew to like him greatly. His faults were all on the surface; his heart was in the right place. Boy though he was, he was thrown upon himself in the world. I don't mean as to money, but as to a home; and he steered his course unscathed through its shoals. The few friends he had lived in the country. He had neither father nor mother. His lodgings were in Norfolk Street, very near to us. Miss Methold would sometimes have him in to spend Sunday with me; and now and then, but very rarely, he and I were invited for that day to dine with Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar.
The Serjeant lived in Russell Square, in one of its handsomest houses. But he kept, so to say, no establishment; just two or three servants and a modest little brougham. He must have been making a great deal of money at that time, and I suppose he put it by.
"Ah! you don't know, Charley," Lake said to me one evening when I was in Norfolk Street, and we began talking of him. "It is said his money went in that same precious bank which devoured yours; and it is thought that he lives in this quiet manner, eschewing pomps and vanities, to be able to help friends who were quite ruined by it. Old Jones knows a little, and I've heard him drop a word or two."
"I am sure my uncle is singularly good and kind. Those simple-minded men generally are."
Lake nodded. "Few men, I should say, come up to Serjeant Stillingfar."