e to accept it.

"It is very kind of you, Timothy," replied I; "but I can only look upon
you as a friend and an equal."

"There you are right and are wrong in the same breath. You are right in
looking upon me as a friend, Japhet; and you would be still more right
in allowing me to prove my friendship as I propose; but you are wrong in
looking upon me as an equal, for I am not so either in personal
appearance, education, or anything else. We are both foundlings, it is
true; but you were christened after Abraham Newland, and I after the
workhouse pump. You were a gentleman foundling, presenting yourself
with a fifty-pound note, and good clothes. I made my appearance in rags
and misery. If you find your parents, you will rise in the world; if I
find mine, I shall, in all probability, have no reason to be proud of
them. I therefore must insist upon having my own choice in the part I
am to play in the drama, and I will prove to you that it is my right to
choose. You forget that, when we started, your object was to search
after your father, and I told you mine should be to look after my
mother. You have selected high life as the expected sphere in which he
is to be found, and I select low life as that in which I am most likely
to discover the object of my search. So you perceive," continued Tim,
laughing, "that we must arrange so as to suit the views of both without
parting company. Do you hunt among bag-wigs, amber-headed canes, silks
and satins--I will burrow among tags and tassels, dimity and mob caps;
and probably we shall both succeed in the object of our search. I leave
you to hunt in the drawing-rooms, while I ferret in the kitchen. You
may throw yourself on a sofa and exclaim--`Who is my father?' while I
will sit in the cook's lap, and ask her if she may happen to be my
mother."

This sally of Timothy's made even Fleta laugh; and after a little more
remonstrance, I consented that he should perform the part of my valet.
Indeed, the more I reflected upon it, the greater appeared the
advantages which might accrue from the arrangement. By the time that
this point had been settled, we had arrived at the town to which we
directed our steps, and took up our quarters at an inn of moderate
pretensions, but of very great external cleanliness. My first object
was to find out some fitting asylum for little Fleta. The landlady was
a buxom, good-tempered young woman, and I gave the little girl into her
charge, whi