It was by this time getting late, and the father and daughter were sitting in their almost fireless room, anxious and sad, for, as Tracy had conjectured, they were reduced to the last extremity of distress, when they were startled at a double knock at the door. It was long since those old walls had reverberated to such a sound.
"Who can that be?" exclaimed Lane, looking suddenly up from his book, which was a tattered volume of Shakspeare, the only one he possessed. "I heard a coach stop."
"It can be nobody here," returned Mary: "it must be a mistake."
However, she rose and opened the door, at which by this time stood Mr. Aldridge, whose features it was too dark to distinguish.
"Bring a light here!" said he. "No; stay; I'll send you out the money," he added to the coachman, and with that he stepped forward to the little parlor. But the scene that there presented itself struck heavily upon his heart, and perhaps upon his conscience, for instead of advancing, he stood still in the doorway. Here was poverty indeed! He and Lane had begun life together, but what a contrast in their ultimate fortunes! The one with much more money than he knew what to do with; the other without a shilling to purchase a bushel of coals to warm his shivering limbs; and yet the rich man was probably the more miserable of the two!
"Mr. Aldridge!" exclaimed Lane, rising from his seat in amazement.
"Take this, and pay the man his fare," said the visitor to Mary, handing her some silver. "And have you no coals?"
"No, sir."
"Then buy some directly, and make up the fire. Get plenty; here's the money to pay for them;" and as the coals were to be had next door, there was soon a cheerful fire in the grate. Lane drew his chair close to the fender, and spread his thin fingers to the welcome blaze.
"I did not know you were so badly off as this," Mr. Aldridge remarked.