ally don't know who I
am, as my father died when I was a baby, and my poor mother followed him
in a few months, never having recovered from the shock of his death. I
was born in Australia, at Broken Hill, and was an only child. As far as
I can make out, my parents had no relations; or, if they had, they had
quarrelled with them all. They were very poor; and when they died,
leaving one wretched little brat behind them, some kind friends adopted
the poor beggar and carried him off to a sheep-farm, where they brought
him up among their own children."

"Poor little lonely boy!"

"I was lonely--more lonely than you can imagine; for, kind as they were
to me, I was naturally not as dear to them as their own children. I was
an outsider; I have always been an outsider; so, perhaps, there is some
excuse for that intense soreness on my part which you so much deprecate
whenever this fact is once more brought home to me."

"I am sorry that I was so hard on you," said Elisabeth, in a very
penitent voice; "but it is one of my worst faults that I am always being
too hard on people. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course I will." And Elisabeth--also possessing charm--earned
forgiveness as quickly as she had accorded it.

"Please tell me more," she pleaded.

"The other children were such a loud, noisy, happy-go-lucky pack, that
they completely overpowered a delicate, sensitive boy. Moreover, I
detested the life there--the roughness and unrefinement of it all." And
Cecil's eyes filled with tears at the mere remembrance of his childish
miseries.

"Did you stay with them till you grew up?"

"Yes; I was educated--after a fashion--with their own sons. But at last
a red-letter day dawned for me. An English artist came to stay at the
sheep-farm, and discovered that I also was among the prophets. He was a
bachelor, and he took an uncommon fancy to me; it ended in his adopting
me and bringing me to England, and making of me an artist like himself."

"Another point of similarity between us!" Elisabeth cried; "my parents
died when I was a baby, and I also was adopted."

"I am so glad; all the sting seems to be taken out of things if I feel I
share them with you."

"Then where is your adopted father now?"

"He died when I was five-and-twenty, Miss Farringdon; and left me barely
enough to keep me from abject poverty, should I not be able to make a
living by my brush."

"And you have never learned anything more about your parents?"

"Neve