especial shame, gushed out of his eyes in a torrent, and his whole
frame shook with sobs. The Doctor caught him in his arms, and hugged
him to his old tobacco-fragrant dressing-gown, hugged him like a bear,
as he was; so that poor Ned hardly knew whether he was embracing him
with his love, or squeezing him to death in his wrath.

"Ned," said he, "I'm not going to live a great while longer; I seem an
eternal nuisance to you, I know; but it's not so, I'm mortal and I feel
myself breaking up. Let us be friends while I live; for believe me,
Ned, I've done as well by you as I knew, and care for nothing, love
nothing, so much as you. Little Elsie here, yes. I love her too. But
that's different. You are a boy, and will be a man; and a man whom I
destine to do for me what it has been the object of my life to achieve.
Let us be friends. We will--we must be friends; and when old Doctor
Grim, worthless wretch that he is, sleeps in his grave, you shall not
have the pang of having parted from him in unkindness. Forgive me, Ned;
and not only that, but love me better than ever; for though I am a
hasty old wretch, I am not altogether evil as regards you."

I know not whether the Doctor would have said all this, if the day had
not been pretty well advanced, and if his potations had not been many;
but, at any rate, he spoke no more than he felt, and his emotions
thrilled through the sensitive system of the boy, and quite melted him
down. He forgave Doctor Grim, and, as he asked, loved him better than
ever; and so did Elsie. Then it was so sweet, so good, to have had this
one outgush of affection,--he, poor child, who had no memory of
mother's kisses, or of being cared for out of tenderness, and whose
heart had been hungry, all his life, for some such thing; and probably
Doctor Grim, in his way, had the same kind of enjoyment of this
passionate crisis; so that though, the next day, they all three looked