Page:Orley Farm (Serial Volume 15).pdf/20

134 touch her gently, striving to bring her back to decency. But the other! Well, one should be willing to touch him too, to make that attempt of bringing back upon him also. I can only say that the task is both nauseous and unpromising. Look at him as he stands there before the foul, reeking, sloppy bar, with the glass in his hand, which he has just emptied. See the grimace with which he puts it down, as though the dram had been almost too unpalatable. It is the last touch of hypocrisy with which he attempts to cover the offence;—as though he were to say, 'I do it for my stomach's sake; but you know how I abhor it.' Then he skulks sullenly away, speaking a word to no one,—shuffling with his feet, shaking himself in his foul rags, pressing himself into a heap—as though striving to drive the warmth of the spirit into his extremities! And there he stands lounging at the corner of the street, till his short patience is exhausted, and he returns with his last penny for the other glass. When that has been swallowed the policeman is his guardian.

Reader, such as you and I have come to that, when abandoned by the respect which a man owes to himself. May God in his mercy watch over us and protect us both!

Such a man was Snow père as he stood before Graham in his chambers in the Temple. He could not ask him to sit down, so he himself stood up as he talked to him. At first the man was civil, twirling his old hat about, and shifting from one foot to the other;—very civil, and also somewhat timid, for he knew that he was half drunk at the moment. But when he began to ascertain what was Graham's object in sending for him, and to understand that the gentleman before him did not propose to himself the honour of being his son-in-law, then his civility left him, and, drunk as he was, he spoke out his mind with sufficient freedom.

'You mean to say, Mr. Graham'—and under the effect of gin he turned the name into Gorm—'that you are going to throw that young girl over?'

'I mean to say no such thing. I shall do for her all that is in my power. And if that is not as much as she deserves, it will, at any rate, be more than you deserve for her.'

'And you won't marry her?'

'No; I shall not marry her. Nor does she wish it. I trust that she will be engaged, with my full approbation'

'And what the deuce, sir, is your full approbation to me? Whose child is she, I should like to know? Look here, Mr. Gorm; perhaps you forget that you wrote me this letter when I allowed you to have the charge of that young girl?' And he took out from his breast a very greasy pocket-book, and displayed to Felix his own much-worn letter,—holding it, however, at a distance, so that it should not be torn from his hands by any sudden raid. 'Do you