e taken home. But, by that time, Polly had become unable
to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn
her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep. "Sleep,
Polly, sleep," said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder;
"you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate!"

What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully
folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. He said
nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They drove to a
modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court
of a small house. "Do not wake the child," said Barbox Brothers softly
to the driver; "I will carry her in as she is."

Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's mother,
Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to a ground-floor room.
There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered
his eyes with his emaciated hand.

"Tresham," said Barbox in a kindly voice, "I have brought you back your
Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and tell me you are better."

The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the
hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "Thank you, thank you! I
may say that I am well and happy."

"That's brave," said Barbox. "Tresham, I have a fancy--Can you make room
for me beside you here?"

He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump
peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder.

"I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you know,
and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes), to give up
Polly, having found her, to no one but you. Will you take her from me?"

As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked
steadily at the other.

"She is very dear to you, Tresham?"

"Unutterably dear."

"God bless her! It is not much, Polly," he continued, turning his eyes
upon her peaceful face as he apostrophized her, "it is not much, Polly,
for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far
better than himself as a little child is; but it would be much--much upon
his cruel head, and much upon his guilty soul--if he could be so wicked
as to invoke a curse. He had better have a millstone round his neck, and
be cast into the deepest sea. Live and thrive, my pretty baby!" Here he
kissed her. "Live and prosper, an