Slowly resuming his attitude of repose, the guest considered the
question.

"No-o--not exactly. With a friend of his mother's, not her family.
Unfortunately, she had no family to speak of--and mine is in England.
Neither of us had a soul here who really belonged to us. That was just
the difficulty."

"It must have been a great difficulty," murmured Alice, in a feeling
tone.

"I believe you," assented Guthrie, with emphasis. "In fact, it put me
into the most ridiculous hole, the most confounded fix--one that I
can't for the life of me see my way out of; one that--However, I
mustn't talk about it to you. It's not a thing that one ought to talk
about to anybody."

And yet he yearned to talk about it, and now, and to this particularly
sympathetic woman, who was not young and giddy, but, like
himself, experienced in the troubles of life, such as weighed him down.
There was "something about her" that irresistibly appealed to him, and
he did not know what; but an author, who knows everything, knows
exactly what it was. It was the moonlight night.

A few words from her, backed by the nameless influences of the hour,
unloosed his tongue.

"You mustn't think me an unnatural parent," he said. "It's not that at
all. I'm awfully fond of him. I've got his photograph in my pocket--