I did not realize at first that my host was almost as much startled as I was.
'Your mother!' he repeated; 'your mother! Surely not! Do you mean to tell me,' he said, laying his hand on my arm, 'that your name is Villiers?'
'Of course it is,' I said; 'Jack Villiers.'
'Nellie, Nellie,' he cried, for she had gone upstairs to the children, 'come down at once; who do you think this is, Nellie? You will never guess. It is Jack Villiers, the little Jack you and I used to know so well. Why, do you know,' he said, 'our own little Jack was named after you; he was indeed, and we haven't heard of you for years—never since your dear mother died.'
I was too much astonished at first to ask him any questions, and he was too much delighted to explain where and how he had known me; but after a time, when we had recovered ourselves a little, we drew our chairs round the fire, and he began his story.
'I was a poor little street Arab once,' he said; 'a forlorn boy with no one to love him or to care for him. But I made friends with an old man in the attic of the lodging-house who had a barrel-organ.'
'That barrel-organ?' I asked.
'The very same,' he said, 'and he loved it as if it was a child. When he was too ill to take it out himself, I took it for him, and that was how I first saw your mother.'
'Was she married then?' I asked.
'No,' he said with a smile; 'she was quite a little girl, about the age of our Marjorie. She used to run to her nursery window as soon as she heard me begin to play. I let her turn the organ one day, and she said she liked all the tunes, but she liked "Home, Sweet Home" the best of all.'