dless wealth; he never undeceived me; nay, he would not
even answer my importunate questions as to my family, my connections,
whence we came, and of what county."

"If he had," muttered Grog, "I 'd be curious to have heard his
narrative."

"I saw, at last, that there was a secret, and then I pressed him no
more."

"And you did well. Had you importuned, and had he yielded, it had been
worse for _him_."

"Just as little did I suspect," continued she, rapidly, "that any
reproach could attach to my living in his society; he was your friend;
it was at your desire he accepted this brief guardianship; he never, by
a word, a look, transgressed the bounds of respectful courtesy; and
I felt all the unconstrained freedom of old friendship in our
intercourse."

"All his reserve and all your delicacy won't silence evil tongues, girl.
I intended you to have stayed a day or two, at most, at Aix. You passed
weeks there. Whose fault that, you say? Mine,--of course, mine, and no
one else's. But what but my fault every step in your whole life? Why
was n't I satisfied to bring you up in my own station, with rogues and
swindlers for daily associates? Then I might have had a daughter who
would not be ashamed to own me."

"Oh, that I am not; that I will never be," cried she, throwing her arm
around his neck. "What has your whole life been but a sacrifice to me?
It may be that you rate too highly these great prizes of life; that
you attach to the station you covet for me a value I cannot concur in.
Still, I feel that it was your love for me prompted this hope, and that
while _you_ trod the world darkly and painfully, you purchased a path of
light and pleasantness for _me_."

"You have paid me for it all by these words," said he, drawing his hand
across his eyes. "I 'd work as a daily laborer on the road, I'd be a
sailor before the mast, I'd take my turn with the chain-gang and eat
Norfolk Island biscuit, if it could help to place you where I seek to
see you."

"And what is this rank to which you aspire so eagerly?"

"I want you to be a peeress, girl. I want you to be one of the
proudest guild the world ever yet saw or heard of; to have a station so
accredited that every word you speak, every act you do, goes forth with
its own authority."

"But stay!" broke she in, "men's memories will surely carry them back to
who I was."

"Let them, girl. Are you the stuff to be chilled by that? Have I made
you what you are, that you cannot p