‘The more I think of it,’ said the doctor, ‘the more I see that it will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in possession of the boy’s real story. I am certain it will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery.’

‘Oh! what is to be done?’ cried Rose. ‘Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?’

‘Why, indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. ‘I would not have had them here, for the world.’

‘All I know is,’ said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness,