little man!”

She then, with the natural inconsequence and variability of her sex, immediately proceeded to hug and kiss the mite as affectionately as she had been shaking and vituperating him the moment before, he putting up with the new form of treatment as calmly and indifferently as he had received the previous scolding.

“He’s a fine little chap,” said Jupp affably, conceiving a better opinion of the nurse from her change of manner as well as from noticing, now that her temporary excitement had evaporated, that she was a young and comely woman with a very kindly face. “He told me as how he were going to Lun’non.”

“Did he now?” she exclaimed admiringly.

“He’s the most owdacious young gen’leman as ever was, I think; for he’s capable, young as he is, not long turned four year old, of doin’ a’most anything. Look now at all them things of his as he’s brought from home!”

“That were his luggage like,” observed Jupp, smiling and showing his white teeth, which contrasted well with his black beard, making him appear very nice-looking really, the nurse thought.

“The little rogue!” said she enthusiastically, hugging the mite again with such effusion that Jupp wished he could change places with him, he being unmarried and “an orphan man,” as he described himself, “without chick or child to care for him.”

“He ought to be a good ’un with you a looking after him,” he remarked with a meaning glance, which, although the nurse noticed, she did not pretend to see.

“So he is—sometimes, eh, Master Teddy?” she said, bending down again over the mite to hide a sudden flush which had made her face somehow or other crimson again.

“Ess,” replied the hero of the occasion, who, soothed by all these social amenities passing around him, quickly put aside his stolid demeanour and became his little prattling self again.

However, such was his deep foresight that he did not forget to grasp so favourable an opportunity for settling the initial difficulty between himself and nurse in the matter of the kitten, which had led up logically to all that had happened, and so prevent any misunderstanding on the point in future.

“Oo won’t tate way kitty?” he asked pleadingly, holding up with both hands the struggling little animal, which Jupp had incontinently dropped from his knee when he rose up, on the door of the waiting-room being suddenly opened and the impromptu picnic organised by the mite and himself brought to an abrupt termination, by the unexpected advent of the nurse on the scene.

“No, Master Teddy, I promise you I won’t,” she replied emphatically. “You can bathe the poor little brute in the basin and then put it all wet in your bed afterwards, as you did this morning, or anything else you like. Bless you, you can eat it if it so please you, and I shan’t interfere!”

“All wite, den; we frens ’dain,” lisped the mite, putting up his little rosebud mouth so prettily for a kiss, in token of peace and forgiveness on his part, that the nurse could not help giving him another hug.

This display of affection had unfortunately the same effect on Jupp as before, causing the miserable porter to feel acute pangs of envy; although, by rights, he had no direct interest in the transaction, and was only an outside observer, so to speak!

By way of concealing his feelings, therefore, he turned the conversation.

“And have you come far arter him, miss, if I may make so bold as to ax the question?” he said hesitatingly, being somewhat puzzled in his mind as to whether “miss” or “mum” was the correct form in which to address such a pleasant young woman, who might or might not be a matron for all he could tell.

He evidently hit upon the right thing this time; for, she answered him all the more pleasantly, with a bright smile on her face.

“Why, ever so far!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you know that large red brick house t’other side of the village, where Mr Vernon lives—a sort of old-fashioned place, half covered with ivy, and with a big garden?”

“Parson Vernon’s, eh?”

“Yes, Master Teddy’s his little son.”

“Lor’, I thought he were a single man, lone and lorn like myself, and didn’t have no children,” said Jupp.

“That’s all you know about it,” retorted the nurse. “You must be a stranger in these parts; and, now I come to think on it, I don’t believe as I ever saw you here before.”

“No, miss, I was only shifted here last week from the Junction, and hardly knows nobody,” said Jupp apologetically. “For the rights o’ that, I ain’t been long in the railway line at all, having sarved ten years o’ my time aboard a man-o’-war, and left it thinking I’d like to see what a shore billet was like; and so I got made a porter, miss, my karacter being good on my discharge.”

“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the nurse. “I do so love sailors.”

“If you’ll only say the word, miss, I’ll go to sea again to-morrow then!” ejaculated Jupp eagerly.

“Oh no!” laughed the nurse; “why, then I shouldn’t see any more of you; but I was telling you about Master Teddy. Parson Vernon, as you call him, has four children in all—three of them girls, and Master Teddy is the only boy and the youngest of the lot.”

“And I s’pose he’s pretty well sp’ilt?” suggested Jupp.

“You may well say that,” replied the other. “He was his mother’s pet, and she, poor lady, died last year of consumption, so he’s been made all the more of since by his little sisters, and the grandmother when she comes down, as she did at Christmas. You’d hardly believe it, small as he looks he almost rules the house; for his father never interferes, save some terrible row is up and he hears him crying—and he can make a noise when he likes, can Master Teddy!”

“Ess,” said the mite at this, thinking his testimony was appealed to, and nodding his head affirmatively.

“And he comed all that way from t’other side o’ the village by hisself?” asked Jupp by way of putting a stop to sundry other endearments the fascinating young woman was recklessly lavishing on the little chap. “Why, it’s more nor a mile!”

“Aye, that he has. Just look at him,” said she, giving the mite another shake, although this time it was of a different description to the one she had first administered.

He certainly was not much to look at in respect of stature, being barely three feet high; but he was a fine little fellow for all that, with good strong, sturdy limbs and a frank, fearless face, which his bright blue eyes and curling locks of brown hair ornamented to the best advantage.

As before mentioned, he had evidently not been prepared for a journey when he made his unexpected appearance at the station, being without a hat on his head and having a slightly soiled pinafore over his other garments; while his little feet were encased in thin house shoes, or slippers, that were ill adapted for walking through the mud and snow.

Now that the slight differences that had arisen between himself and the nurse had been amicably settled, he was in the best of spirits, with his little face puckered in smiles and his blue eyes twinkling with fun as he looked up at the two observing him.

“He is a jolly little chap!” exclaimed Jupp, bending down and lifting him up in his strong arms, the mite the while playfully pulling at his black beard; “and I tell you what, miss, I think he’s got a very good nurse to look after him!”

“Do you?” said she, adding a moment afterwards as she caught Jupp’s look of admiration, “Ah, that’s only what you say now. You didn’t think so when I first came in here after him; for you asked me not to beat him—as if I would!”

“Lor’, I never dreamt of such a thing!” cried he with much emphasis, the occasion seeming to require it. “I only said that to coax you like, miss. I didn’t