“Thankee,” said Ned.
“If you had come to beg, you should not have got it,” said the doctor. “God help him!” he added as he shut the door; “it is an awful sight to see an old companion fall so low.”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
An Old Plot.
It is evening now. The snow is still on the ground; but it looks ruddy and warm in the streets, because of the blaze of light from the shop-windows, and it looks colder than it did on the house-tops, by reason of the moon which sails in the wintry sky.
The man in the moon must have been in good spirits that night, for his residence seemed almost fuller than the usual full moon, and decidedly brighter—to many, at least, of the inhabitants of London. It looked particularly bright to Miss Tippet, as she gazed at it through the windows of her upper rooms, and awaited the arrival of “a few friends” to tea. Miss Tippet’s heart was animated with feelings of love to God and man; and she had that day, in obedience to the Divine precept, attempted and accomplished a good many little things, all of which were, either directly or indirectly, calculated to make human beings happy.
Emma Ward, too, thought the moon particularly bright that night; in fact she might almost have been regarded as a lunatic; so steadily did she gaze at the moon, and smile to herself without any apparent motive. There was reason for her joy, however, for she had come to know, in some mysterious way, that Frank Willders loved her; and she had known, for a long time past, that she loved Frank Willders.
Frank had become a foreman of the Fire Brigade, and had been removed from his former station and comrades to his new charge in the city. But Frank had not only risen in his profession; he had also risen intellectually. His mother had secured to him a pretty good education to begin with, and his own natural taste and studious habits had led him to read extensively. His business required him to sit up and watch when other men slept. He seldom went to bed before four o’clock any morning, and when he did take his rest he lay down like the soldier in an enemy’s country, ready to rush to arms at the first sound of the bugle. His bugle, by the way, was a speaking-trumpet, one end of which was close to the head of his bed, the other end being in the lobby where the men on duty for the night reposed.