"That is Antonio Thorpe," observed Mr. Floyd—"a young friend of mine for whom I want to get board and lodging in Belfield. Can any of you recommend a place? He is a lad of eighteen or nineteen, and will probably study under your own masters."
"Mamma would be very glad to have a boarder," struck in Georgy earnestly. "There is a nice large room for him."
I ushered in the new-comer, a slim fellow of my own height, but looking immeasurably older, with a delicate black moustache and a coat which fitted in a way to shame anything in Belfield.
"Well, well, Tony!" said Mr. Floyd: "you followed quickly upon my footsteps; but all the better, perhaps, as I have already heard of a suitable place for you to settle. This young lady, Miss Lenox, thinks her mother may be able to accommodate you: perhaps she will be good enough to take you home now and introduce you, referring her family to me."
Thorpe bowed with a very finished air, and presently was walking off in the rain with Georgy, holding his umbrella over her in a manner truly Grandisonian. Harry and Jack also went away, and I was left alone with my guardian; for, although I had never seen him since my father's funeral eight years before, my guardian I knew him to be. He called me up to him, flung his arm over my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "My dear boy!" said he in a kind voice, and kissed me on the forehead. "You remember me a little, don't you?" he asked.
"I remember you now very well: at first it seemed all gone from me."
"No wonder. I have been in Europe eight years. My little girl is ten years old, and had never seen me since she was the merest baby. She was afraid of me at first."
But not for long, I was sure of that: nobody, man, woman or child, could look into his face and not love and trust him.
"I want to see your mother," he exclaimed with a sudden flash of expression over his tranquil face. "Your mother is all that is left to me of my youth: I have come back an old man."
I laughed at this, and then we fell to talking of our life in Belfield. I was not a loquacious fellow, but something about Mr. Floyd unloosed my tongue, and after describing our quiet household ways I spoke freely of the Lenoxes and of Jack and Harry. The two boys were cousins, and Harry, having neither father nor mother, lived with the Holts, who were the rich people of our village. My two friends loved me dearly, but still they were more to each other than I could be to either, for they shared the same room, ate at the same table, and had grown into an intimacy wonderful and rare even among brothers. They were Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades; but indeed I doubted if anything in poetry, history or tradition had ever equalled this beautiful and complete friendship. I could not be jealous of it, because each gave me all I needed; and even if, at times, I felt the pang of being a little outside their world, my isolation was made sacred to me by the recollection of the brother I had lost, in whom some time, somewhere, I should regain everything.