Tom Sedley looked at the wild, large eyes that were watching him--the round spectacles now removed--across the table, and could not help smiling.
"Yes, the _smile_--it _is_ the smile! You told me, sir, your name was Sedley, not Verney."
"My name is Thomas Sedley. My father was Captain Sedley, and served through a part of the Peninsular campaign. He was not twenty at the battle of Vittoria, and he was at Waterloo. My mother died a few months after I was born."
"No; she was distantly connected, but her name was Melville," said he.
"Connected. That accounts for it, perhaps."
"And your father--dead?" she said, sadly.
"I know, sir; I remember. They are all locked up _there_, sir, and shan't come out till old Lady Verney dies. But he was not related to the Verneys?"
"No, they were friends. He managed two of the estates after he left the army, and very well, I'm told."
"Sedley--Thomas Sedley--I remember the name. I did not know the name of Sedley--except on one occasion--I was sent for, but it came to nothing. I lived so much in the dark about things," and she sighed.
"I forgot, Mrs. Mervyn, how late it is growing, and how much too long I have stayed here admiring your pretty room, and I fear interrupting you," said Tom, suddenly remembering his dinner, and standing up--"If you kindly give me the receipt, I'll leave it on my way back."
Mrs. Mervyn had clipped the silken cord, and was now reading the letter, and he might as well have addressed his little speech to the china shepherdess, with the straw disc and ribbons on her head, in the bodice and short petticoat of flowered brocade, leaning against a tree, with a lamb with its hind leg and tail broken off, looking affectionately in her face.
"I can't make it out, sir; your eyes are young--perhaps you would read it to me--it is not very long."
"Certainly, with pleasure"--and Tom Sedley sat down, and, spreading the letter on the table, under the candles, read as follows to the old lady opposite:--
"MADAM,--As an old and intimate friend of your reputed husband, I take leave to inform you that he placed a sum of money in my hands for the use of your son and his, if he be still living. Should he be so, will you be so good as to let me know where it will reach him. A line to Jos. Larkin, Esq., at the Verney Arms, Cardyllian, or a verbal message, if you desire to see him, will suffice. Mr. Larkin is the solvent and religious attorney of the present Lord Verney, and you have my consent to advise with him on the subject.