pardon me the expression of your interest is so � tom should be so proud of it � i know this is but i am so compelled to admire being so impulsive she said mrs no you know i make no pretence with you you know i am a sordid piece of human nature ready to sell myself at any time for any reasonable sum and altogether incapable of any proceeding whatever i am waiting she returned for your reference to my brother you are rigid with me and i deserve it i am as worthless a dog as you will find except that i am not false � not false but you surprised and started me from my subject which was your brother i have an interest in him have you an interest in anything mr she asked half and half if you had asked me when i first came here i should have said no i must say now � even at the hazard of appearing to make a pretence and of justly awakening your incredulity � yes she made a slight mo s ment as if she were trying to speak but could not find voice at length she said mr i give you credit for being interested in my brother thank you i claim to deserve it you know how little i do claim but i will go that length you have done so much for him you are so fond of him your whole life mrs expresses such charming self on his � pardon me again � i am running wide of the subject i am interested in him for his own sake times she had made the slightest action possible as if she would have risen in a hurry and gone away he had turned the course of what he said at that instant and she remained mrs h resumed in a lighter manner and yet with a show of effort in assuming it which was even more expressive than the manner he dismissed it is no offence in a young fellow of your brother s years if he is heedless and expensive � a little dissipated in the common phrase is he yes allow me to be frank do you think he games at all i think he makes mr waiting as if that were not her whole answer she added i know he does of course he loses yes everybody does lose who may i hint at the of your sometimes supplying him with money for these purposes she sat looking down but at this question raised her eyes and a little me of impertinent curiosity my dear mrs i think tom may be gradually falling into trouble and i wish to stretch out a helping hand to him from the depths of my wicked experience � shall i say again for his sake is that necessary she seemed to try to answer but nothing came of it candidly to confess everything that has occurred to me said james again gliding with the same appearance of effort into his more airy manner i will confide to you my doubt whether he has had many advantages whether � forgive my � whether any great amount of confidence is likely to have been established between himself and his most worthy father i do not said flushing with her own great remembrance in that wise think it likely or between himself and � i may trust to your perfect of my meaning i am sure � and his highly esteemed brother in law she flushed deeper and deeper and was burning red when she replied in a fainter voice i do not think that likely either mrs said after a short may there be a better confidence between yourself and me tom has borrowed a considerable sum of you you will mr she after some she had been more or less uncertain and troubled throughout the conversation and yet had in the main preserved her self contained manner you wiu understand that if i tell you what you press to know it is not by way of complaint or regret i would never complain of anything and what i have done i do not in the least regret so spirited too thought james when i married i foimd that my brother was even at that time heavily in debt heavily for him i mean heavily enough to oblige me to sell some they were no sacrifice i sold them very willingly i attached no value to them they were quite worthless to me either she saw in his that he knew or she only feared in her conscience that he knew that she spoke of some of her husband s gifts she stopped and again if he had not known it before he would have known it then though he had been a much man than he was since then i have given my brother at various times what money i could spare in short what money i have had confiding in you at all on the of the interest you profess for him i will not do so by since you have been in the habit of visiting here he has wanted in one sum as much as a hundred pounds i have not been able to give it to him i have felt for the consequences of his being so involved but i have kept these secrets until now when i trust them to your honor i have held no confidence with any one because � you anticipated my reason just now she abruptly broke off he was a ready man and he saw and seized an opportunity here of presenting her own image to her slightly disguised as her brother mrs though a person of the worldly i feel the utmost interest i assure you in what you tell me i cannot possibly be hard upon your brother i and share the 