ke his little sister. Silas sank into his chair
powerless, under the double presence of an inexplicable surprise and a
hurrying influx of memories. How and when had the child come in
without his knowledge? He had never been beyond the door. But along
with that question, and almost thrusting it away, there was a vision of
the old home and the old streets leading to Lantern Yard--and within
that vision another, of the thoughts which had been present with him in
those far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange to him now, like old
friendships impossible to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that
this child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life: it
stirred fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe--old quiverings of
tenderness--old impressions of awe at the presentiment of some Power
presiding over his life; for his imagination had not yet extricated
itself from the sense of mystery in the child's sudden presence, and
had formed no conjectures of ordinary natural means by which the event
could have been brought about.

But there was a cry on the hearth: the child had awaked, and Marner
stooped to lift it on his knee. It clung round his neck, and burst
louder and louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries with "mammy"
by which little children express the bewilderment of waking. Silas
pressed it to him, and almost unconsciously uttered sounds of hushing
tenderness, while he bethought himself that some of his porridge, which
had got cool by the dying fire, would do to feed the child with if it
were only warmed up a little.

He had plenty to do through the next hour. The porridge, sweetened
with some dry brown sugar from an old store which he had refrained from
using for himself, stopped the cries of the little one, and made her
lift her blue eyes with a wide quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the spoon
into her mouth. Presently she slipped from his knee and began to
toddle about, but with a pretty stagger that made Silas jump up and
follow her lest she should fall against anything that would hurt her.
But she only fell in a sitting posture on the ground, and began to pull
at her boots, looking up at him with a crying face as if the boots hurt
her. He took her on his knee again, but it was some time before it
occurred to Silas's dull bachelor mind that the wet boots were the
grievance, pressing on her warm ankles. He got them off with
difficulty, and baby was at once happily occupied with the