He gave a few directions as he passed through the consulting-room, and then son and daughter were left to their painful vigil, and the thick fog covered all as with a funeral pall.

CHAPTER TWO.

GOING BACKWARDS.

Breakfast-time in the dull dining-room, with its sombre old furniture, carpet dotted with holes worn by the legs of chairs, and the drab-painted panelled walls, made cheerful by a set of engravings in tarnished gilt, fly-pecked frames of the princes of the blood royal: H.R.H. the Prince Regent, with his brothers the Dukes of York, Clarence, Kent, Cumberland, Sussex, and Cambridge, each with a little square tasselled pillow at the top of the frame, and, reposing thereon, a very shabby coronet; while the two windows, with their faded curtains, looked across a row of rusty spikes at a prospect composed of a gaunt old house, evidently let in lodgings.

Richmond Chartley, looking as charming as a handsome girl will look, in spite of a line of care upon her her head and a twitch of anxiety upon the corners of her lips, was distributing coffee, and alternating the task by cutting bread-and-butter--thin-thick for her brother Hendon, who was reading a sporting paper, and thin-thin for Dr Chartley, who was gazing in an abstracted manner at a paper before him, and making notes from time to time with a gilt pencil-case.

He was a bland-looking, handsome man, with stiff white cravat, and that suave, softly-smiling aspect peculiar to fashionable physicians; but the fashion had gone, though the smile remained, to be shed upon his two children instead of upon the patients who came no more.

The breakfast progressed, with Hendon eagerly taking in the detail of the last Australian boat-race, and the doctor making a calculation for the variation of the compound that was the dream of his life, till, as it was finally ended, he bent forward, and said softly, "Truly thankful, amen!"

Hendon Chartley rustled his paper, and doubled it up, and thrust it into his pocket.

"But no fried bacon," he said bitterly. Dr Chartley turned his beams upon his son, and shook his head slowly.

"Indigestible, Hendon. But never mind. Work as I do. Get to the top of the tree, and then you can keep your carriage, and destroy your liver with Strasburg pie."

"Bah!" said Hendon; but his father's countenance did not change.

"Going to the hospital, my boy?"

"Yes, the old dismal round. But to allay suffering. A great profession."

"Wish it had less profession and more solid satisfaction!" said the young man. "Good-bye, Rich."

He hurried out of the room, and the next minute the door was heard to bang.

"An ornament to the profession some day, Richmond."

"Yes, dear, but--"

"Well, my love?" said the doctor, beaming upon her softly.

"Don't think me unkind, dear, now you are so deep in your study; but I do really want a little help."

"Certainly, my darling, certainly. Now, that's what I like; frank confidence on your part. You are the best of housekeepers, my child; but I don't want you to take all the burden on your shoulders."

Richmond Hartley sighed, and the line on her broad handsome forehead; took to itself so many puckers, which, however, did not detract from her beauty.

"Well, my dear; speak out. You want something?"

"Yes, father; money."

"Ah!" said Dr Chartley softly, as he tapped the table with the top of his worn pencil-case. "Money; you want money."

"Yes, father. I am horribly pressed. Poor Hendon has really not enough to pay for his lunch, and--"

"Yes, my dear; but Hendon will soon be in a position to provide comfortably for himself," said the doctor blandly.

The old proverb about the growing grass and the starving steed occurred to Richmond, but he only sighed.

"I don't think you need trouble yourself about Hendon, my dear."

"But there is the rent, father," said Richmond desperately, as the full extent of their position flashed upon her; and she felt impelled to speak.

"Ah, yes; the rent. I had forgotten the rent," said the doctor dreamily.

"Final and threatening notices have been left about the rates and taxes."

"Yes," said the doctor musingly. "The idea is Utopian, but I have often thought how pleasant life would be were there no rents or rates and taxes."

"Dear father, I must tell you all my troubles now I have begun," said Richmond, leaving her chair to kneel down before the handsome elderly man, and lay her hand upon his breast.

"Certainly, my darling, certainly," he said, bending down to kiss her brow in the most gentlemanly manner, and then caress her luxuriant hair.

"They have threatened to cut off both the gas and water."

"Tut! tut! how unreasonable, Richmond! Really a severe letter ought to be addressed to the companies' directors."

"And, father dear, the tradespeople are growing not only impatient, but absolutely insulting. What am I to do?"

"Wait, my darling, wait. Little clouds in our existence while we are attending the breaking forth of the sun. Not long, my dear. I am progressing rapidly with my discovery, and while I shall be extent with the fame, you shall be my dear banker, and manage everything as you do now."

"Yes, yes, dear, I will; but it is so sad. No patient seems to come to you now."

"No, my dear, no," he replied calmly; "I'm afraid I neglected several, and they talked about it among themselves. These things will spread."

"Are there any means left of--pray forgive me, dear--of raising a little money?"

"No, my dear, I think not. But don't trouble about it. Any day now I may have my discovery complete, and then--but really, my dear, this is wasting time. I must get on with my work."

He rose, and Richmond sighed as with courtly grace he raised her hand and kissed it, smiling it her sadly and shaking his head.

"So like your dear mother," he said; "even to the tones of your voice.

Don't let me be disturbed, Richmond. I am getting to a critical point."

He slowly crossed the room, gazing dreamily before him, and passed out, while his child stood listening to his step along the passage at the back of the side-board till the door of the surgery was heard to close, when, clasping her hands, she gazed up at the Prince Regent, as if he were some kind of a fat idol, and exclaimed passionately, "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

A violent twitch made her raise her hand to her face, which was contracted with pain, and she drew her breath hard; but the pang seemed to pass away, and after ringing the bell she began busily to pack the breakfast-things together.

Before she had half done, the door opened softly, and a rather dirty face was thrust in. It was the face of an old-looking boy with snub-nose, large mouth, and a rough, shock head bristling over his prominent forehead, and all redeemed by as bright and roguish-looking a pair of eyes as ever shone out from beneath a low type of head.

The door was only opened wide enough at first to admit the head, but as soon as its owner had given a glance round, the door opened farther, and the rest of a rather small person appeared, dressed in a well-worn page's button suit, partly hidden by a dirty green-baize bibbed apron.

The boy's sleeves were tucked up, and he was carrying a pair of old-fashioned Wellington boots by the tops, and these boots he held up on high.