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Simon and Matt had given up their holiday to fruitless inquiries after Tom Hulme; and Jabez, after a stand-up fight with a boy in the yard in defence of his kitten, had come to have his bleeding nose and bruised forehead doctored by Bess, who shed over him the tears long gathering in their fountains for Tom Hulme’s defection. And somehow at that stylish christening feast, where the baby Augusta was a personage of importance almost as great as the celebrated Miss Kilmansegg, the orphan Jabez and his fosterers came on the table for discussion along with the dessert; Mrs. Chadwick, Mr. Clough, and Joshua Brookes concurring in the opinion mooted by the lady that something should be done to relieve the worthy tanner and his daughter of the cost and trouble of maintaining the boy as he grew older and would want educating. That they should talk of the cost of maintenance when bread was a shilling a loaf, was no marvel; but that “education” should be named as a necessity for one of “nobody’s children,” can only be cited as a proof that either the boy’s strange introduction to Manchester, or Simon’s strange generosity, had excited an interest in both beyond the common run.