"But who is papa?" asked Pisistratus,--a question that would never have
occurred to my father. He never asked who or what the sick papas of
poor children were when the children pulled him by the lappet of his
coat. "Who is papa?"

The child looked hard at me, and the big tears rolled from those large,
luminous eyes, but quite silently. At this moment a full-grown figure
filled up the threshold, and emerging from the shadow, presented to us
the aspect of a stout, well-favored young woman. She dropped a
courtesy, and then said, mincingly,--

"Oh, miss, you ought to have waited for me, and not alarmed the
gentlefolks by running upstairs in that way! If you please, sir, I was
settling with the cabman, and he was so imperent,--them low fellows
always are, when they have only us poor women to deal with, sir, and--"

"But what is the matter?" cried I, for my father had taken the child in
his arms soothingly, and she was now weeping on his breast.

"Why, you see, sir [another courtesy], the gent only arrived last night
at our hotel, sir,--the Lamb, close by Lunnun Bridge,--and he was taken
ill, and he's not quite in his right mind like; so we sent for the
doctor, and the doctor looked at the brass plate on the gent's carpet-
bag, sir, and then he looked into the 'Court Guide,' and he said, 'There
is a Mr. Caxton in Great Russell Street,--is he any relation?' and this
young lady said, 'That's my papa's brother, and we were going there.'
And so, sir, as the Boots was out, I got into a cab, and miss would come
with me, and--"

"Roland--Roland ill! Quick, quick, quick!" cried my father, and with