in my mind a hundred different
explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt
ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of
the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these
little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh
from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I
determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had
prompted her to repose it in me.

There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the
person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night
and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near
home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I
avoided the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus
it was not until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we
were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a
short distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining
on the step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her.

A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I
did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and
I was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our
summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if
some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared
through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer
having to make his way through a great many scattered articles, enabled
me to see both what kind of person it was who advanced and what kind of
place it was through which he came.

It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held
the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I
could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could
recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate
mould which I had noticed in a child. Their bright blue eyes were
certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so very full
of care, that here all resemblance ceased.

The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those
receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd
corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public
eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like
ghosts in armour here and there,