Nell of Shorne Mills

Mr. Vernon nodded.

"There's not much in it," said Dick, with charming candor. "We've never

set eyes on any of her swell connections, and I don't think she's ever

heard from them since the smash."

"What smash?" asked Mr. Vernon, with only faint interest.

"Didn't I tell you? Left the part of _Hamlet_ out of the play! Why,

father added a patent coffeepot to the roaster, and lost all his

money--or nearly all. Then he died. And we came here, and----There you

are, sir; that's the story; and the moral is, 'Let well alone'; or 'Be

content with your roaster, and touch not the pot.' Sounds like the title

of a teetotal tract, doesn't it?"

"And you are at school, I suppose? No, you are too old for that."

"Thanks. I was trying not to feel offended," said Dick. "Nothing hurts a

boy of my age like telling him he isn't a man. No; I've left school, and

I'm supposed to be educated; but it's the thinnest kind of supposition.

I don't fancy they teach you much at most schools. They didn't teach me

anything at mine except cricket and football."

"Oxford, Cambridge?" suggested the invalid, leaning on his elbow, and

looking at the boy absently.

"Wouldn't run to it," said Dick. "Mamma said I must begin the

world--sounds as if it were a loaf of bread or an orange. I should have

'begun it' long ago if it were. The difficulty seems to be where to

begin. I'm supposed to have a taste for engineering--once made a steam

engine out of an empty meat tin. It didn't work very well, and it blew

up and burst the kitchen window; but that's a detail. So I'm waiting,

like Mr. Micawber, for 'something to turn up' in the engineering line. I

take in the engineering paper, and answer all the advertisements; but

nothing comes of it. Quite comfortable? Shall I shake up the pillow,

sir? I know how to do it, for I've seen Nell do 'em for mamma."

"No; thanks, very much. I'm quite comfortable. If you really are

desirous of taking any trouble, you might get me a sheet of note paper

and an envelope."

"To say nothing of a pen, some ink, and blotting paper," said Dick,

rising leisurely.

He brought them and set them on the bed, and Mr. Drake Vernon wrote a

letter.

"I'm sending for some clothes," he explained. "May I trouble you to post

it? Any time will do."