Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully.

"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom
will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him;
but I wonder _what_ time he would come home if I didn't sit up for
him?"

"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go
and see about the oysters."

"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will
have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't
eat a morsel of anything."

To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to
abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he
did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his
visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as
she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish
and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr.
Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk
languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence.

Little by little the dentist's attention seemed to wander away from his
guest. He wheeled his chair round, and sat looking at the fire with the
same fixed gloom upon his face which had darkened it on the night of
his return from Yorkshire. Things had been so desperate with him of
late, that he had lost his old orderly habit of thinking out a business
at one sitting, and making an end of all deliberation and hesitation
about it. There were subjects that forced themselves upon his thoughts,