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"Oh, if such a life can but last! Sophy is so well, so cheerful, so happy. Did not you bear her singing the other day? She never used to sing! But we had not been here a week when song broke out from her,—untaught, as from a bird. But if any ill report of me travel hither from Gatesboro' or elsewhere, we should be sent away, and the bird would be mute in my thorn-tree: Sophy would sing no more."

"Do not fear that slander shall drive you hence. Lady Montfort, you know, is my cousin, but you know not—few do—how thoroughly generous and gentle-hearted she is. I will speak of you to her,—oh! do not look alarmed. She will take my word when I tell her, 'That is a good man;' and if she ask more, it will be enough to say, 'Those who have known better days are loth to speak to strangers of the past.'"

"I thank you earnestly, sincerely," said Waife, brightening up. "One favour more: if you saw in the formal document shown to you, or retain on your memory, the name of—of the person authorized to claim Sophy as his child, you will not mention it to Lady Montfort. I am hot sure if ever she heard that name, but she may have done so, and—and—" he paused a moment, and seemed to muse; then went on, not concluding his sentence. "You are so good to me, Mr. Morley, that I wish to confide in you as far as I can. Now, you see, I am already an old man, and my chief object is to raise up a friend for Sophy when I am gone,—a friend in her own sex, sir. Oh, you cannot guess how I long, how I yearn, to view that child under the holy fostering eyes of a woman. Perhaps if Lady Montfort saw my pretty Sophy she might take a fancy to her. Oh, if she did! if she did! And Sophy," added Waife, proudly, "has a right to respect. She is not like me,—any hovel is good enough for me; but for her! Do you know that I conceived that hope, that the hope helped to lead me back here when, months ago, I was at Humberston, intent upon rescuing Sophy; and saw—though," observed Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round his mouth, "I had no right at that precise moment to be seeing anything—Lady Montfort's humane fear for a blind old impostor, who was trying to save his dog—a black dog, sir, who had dyed his hair—from her carriage wheels. And the hope became stronger still, when, the first Sunday I attended yon village church, I again saw that fair—wondrously fair—face at the far end,—fair as moonlight and as melancholy. Strange it is, sir, that I—naturally a boisterous, mirthful man, and now a shy, skulking fugitive—feel more attracted, more