ry nights, it was not the absence of every
slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the
knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded
spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck
down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering
and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that
his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning
of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of
these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might,
they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care
about them--these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have
sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer
and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom
they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that
could keep such thoughts in restless action!

And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same. When he
could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted
and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same
smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same
love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been
present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to
read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little
dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and
murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.

She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and
moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making
them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and
cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and
when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and
sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate
occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes--hoarse from their
long silence--with her voice.

In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the
child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night,
alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait;
at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.

She would take her station here, at dusk, and