Wealth of Nations or Smollett's England--the profitable studies
recommended, and speedily become lost in a dejected reverie, with
fixed eyes and drooping lips.



CHAPTER V--A HELPING HAND



'Though hawks can prey through storms and winds,
The poor bee in her hive must dwell.'

HENRY VAUGHAN.

In imagination the piteous dejection of our family seems to have
lasted for ages, but on comparison of dates it is plain that the
first lightening of the burthen came in about a fortnight's time.

The firm of Frith and Castleford was coming to the front in the
Chinese trade. The junior partner was an old companion of my
father's boyhood; his London abode was near at hand, and he was a
kind of semi-godfather to both Clarence and me, having stood proxy
for our nominal sponsors. He was as good and open-hearted a man as
ever lived, and had always been very kind to us; but he was scarcely
welcome when my father, finding that he had come up alone to London
to see about some repairs to his house, while his family were still
in the country, asked him to dine and sleep--our first guest since
our misfortune.