rchase at a particular
place if, on three successive times, rain, or some other cause of
Heaven's sending, had formed an obstacle; and she would have
anticipated a broken limb or other heavy misfortune to any one who
persisted in spite of such indications.

"But why should you think the child would turn out ill?" said Godfrey,
in his remonstrances. "She has thriven as well as child can do with
the weaver; and _he_ adopted her. There isn't such a pretty little
girl anywhere else in the parish, or one fitter for the station we
could give her. Where can be the likelihood of her being a curse to
anybody?"

"Yes, my dear Godfrey," said Nancy, who was sitting with her hands
tightly clasped together, and with yearning, regretful affection in her
eyes. "The child may not turn out ill with the weaver. But, then, he
didn't go to seek her, as we should be doing. It will be wrong: I feel
sure it will. Don't you remember what that lady we met at the Royston
Baths told us about the child her sister adopted? That was the only
adopting I ever heard of: and the child was transported when it was
twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, don't ask me to do what I know is wrong: I
should never be happy again. I know it's very hard for _you_--it's
easier for me--but it's the will of Providence."

It might seem singular that Nancy--with her religious theory pieced
together out of narrow social traditions, fragments of church doctrine
imperfectly understood, and girlish reasonings on her small
experience--should have arrived by herself at a way of thinking so
nearly akin to that of many devout people, whose beliefs are held in
the shape of a system quite remote from her knowledge--singular, if we
did not know that human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude
the barriers of system.

Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie, then about twelve years
old, as a child suitable for them to adopt. It had never occurred to
him that Silas would rather part with his life than with Eppie. Surely
the weaver would wish the best to the child he had taken so much
trouble with, and would be glad that such good fortune should happen to
her: she would always be very grateful to him, and he would be well
provided for to the end of his life--provided for as the excellent part
he had done by the child deserved. Was it not an appropriate thing for
people in a higher station to take a charge off the hands of a man in a
lower? It seemed an eminently ap