Aggie's future to be, in any way, associated with a showman's box. I
shall come here, sometimes, to see her, as you have kindly said I may,
but I will not abuse the privilege by coming too often. Perhaps you
won't think a day, once every three months, to be too much?"

"I should think it altogether wrong and monstrous!" the squire
exclaimed hotly. "You have been virtually the child's father, for the
last seven years. You have cared for her, and loved her, and worked for
her. She is everything to you, and I feel how vast are your claims to
her, compared to mine; and now you talk about going away, and coming to
see her once every three months. The idea is unnatural. It is downright
monstrous!

"No, you and I understand each other at last; would to Heaven we had
done so eight years back! I feel how much more nobly you acted in that
unhappy matter than I did, and I esteem and honour you. We are both
getting on in life, we have one common love and interest, we stand in
the same relation to the child, and I say, emphatically, that you have
a right, and more than a right, to a half share in her. You must go
away no more, but remain here as my friend, and as joint guardian of
the child.

"I will have no refusal, man," he went on, as the sergeant shook his
head. "Your presence here will be almost as great a comfort, to me, as
to the child. I am a lonely man. For years, I have cut myself loose
from the world. I have neither associates nor friends. But now that
this great load is off my mind, my first want is a friend; and who
could be so great a friend, who could enter into my plans and hopes for
the future so well, as yourself, who would have an interest in them
equal to my own?"

The sergeant was much moved by the squire's earnestness. He saw that
the latter had really at heart the proposal he made.

"You are very good, squire," he said in a low voice; "but even if I
could bring myself to eat another man's bread, as long as I can work
for my own, it would not do. I am neither by birth nor education fitted
for such a position as that you offer to me."

"Pooh, nonsense!" the squire said hotly. "You have seen the world. You
have travelled and mixed with men. You are fit to associate as an equal
with anyone. Don't you deceive yourself; you certainly do not deceive
me.

"It is pride that stands in your way. For that you are going to risk
the happiness of your granddaughter, to say nothing of mine; for you
don't suppose that