"I think you were sent to him to help him," returned Olivia, softly. "'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren.' Oh, Marcus, you know how that finishes," and Marcus smiled back at her as he left the room.
CHAPTER X.
A GENTLEMANLY TRAMP.
"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."—Timon of Athens.
When Olivia had finished her preparations she summoned Marcus upstairs, and with an air of housewifely pride showed him all the arrangements she had made.
In his bachelor days Dr. Luttrell had been in the habit of picking up all sorts of miscellaneous articles at sales, that he thought might be useful some day, and though Olivia had often laughed at his purchases and called them old lumber, they had often proved serviceable.
The strip of faded carpet and shabby little shut up washstand intended for the surgery, and a couple of chairs, had been put into the empty room, and though it looked bare enough to Marcus's eyes, and in spite of the bright little fire terribly chilly, it would doubtless be a haven of refuge to their miserable guest.
"He says it is just heaven," observed Marcus, when he came downstairs to his wife; "the night before last, poor beggar, he was in the casual ward, and last night he had a few hours in some refuge. 'Fancy the casual ward for a gentleman's son,' he said to me so bitterly, 'and there was actually a barrister there too, and we fraternised.' It is just as I thought, Livy, he was discharged from the hospital about three weeks ago, and has been roughing it ever since."
"Did you ask him his name, Marcus?"