"I'll speak to Ned--I'll speak to Ned," he finished, as he ceremoniously bowed the girl from the office.
James Harding kept his word, and spoke to his son that night; but there was little, after all, that Ned could tell him.

Yes, he remembered Billy Henshaw well, but he had not heard of him for years, since Henshaw's marriage, in fact.

He must be forty years old, Ned said; but he was a fine fellow, an exceptionally fine fellow, and would be sure to deal kindly and wisely by his little orphan namesake; of that Ned was very sure.
"That's good.

I'll write him," declared Mr.James Harding.

"I'll write him tomorrow." He did write--but not so soon as Billy wrote; for even as he spoke, Billy, in her lonely little room at the other end of the town, was laying bare all her homesickness in four long pages to "Dear Uncle William.".