ess
has all gone, and his sweet temper, and his kind happy tone of voice;
you would hardly know him if you saw him, Mr Bold, he is so much
altered; and--and--if this goes on, he will die." Here Eleanor had
recourse to her handkerchief, and so also had her auditors; but she
plucked up her courage, and went on with her tale. "He will break his
heart, and die. I am sure, Mr Bold, it was not you who wrote those
cruel things in the newspaper--"

John Bold eagerly protested that it was not, but his heart smote him
as to his intimate alliance with Tom Towers.

"No, I am sure it was not; and papa has not for a moment thought so;
you would not be so cruel;--but it has nearly killed him. Papa cannot
bear to think that people should so speak of him, and that everybody
should hear him so spoken of:--they have called him avaricious, and
dishonest, and they say he is robbing the old men, and taking the
money of the hospital for nothing."

"I have never said so, Miss Harding. I--"

"No," continued Eleanor, interrupting him, for she was now in the full
flood-tide of her eloquence; "no, I am sure you have not; but others
have said so; and if this goes on, if such things are written again,
it will kill papa. Oh! Mr Bold, if you only knew the state he is in!
Now papa does not care much about money."

Both her auditors, brother and sister, assented to this, and declared
on their own knowledge that no man lived less addicted to filthy lucre
than the warden.

"Oh! it's so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too, Mr Bold.
I couldn't bear that people should think unjustly of papa. Do you
know he would give up the hospital altogether, only he cannot. The
archdeacon says it would be cowardly, and that he would be deserting
his order, and injuring the church. Whatever may happen, papa will
not do that: he would leave the place to-morrow willingly, and give
up his house, and the income and all, if the archdeacon--"

Eleanor was going to say "would let him," but she stopped herself
before she had compromised her father's dignity; and giving a long
sigh, she added--"Oh, I do so wish he would."

"No one who knows Mr Harding personally accuses him for a moment,"
said Bold.

"It is he that has to bear the punishment; it is he that suffers,"
said Eleanor; "and what for? what has he done wrong? how has he
deserved this persecution? he that never had an unkind thought in his
life, he that never said an unkind word!" and here she b