ot one
preparation had been made to receive him.

"Ah!" cried Henry, forgetting the person who had fled, and with a smile
of compassion on the helpless infant, "I am glad I have found you--you
give more joy to me than you have done to your hapless parents. Poor
dear," continued he, while he took off his coat to wrap it in, "I will
take care of you while I live--I will beg for you, rather than you shall
want; but first, I will carry you to those who can, at present, do more
for you than myself."

Thus Henry said and thought, while he enclosed the child carefully in his
coat, and took it in his arms. But proceeding to walk his way with it,
an unlucky query struck him, _where he should go_.

"I must not take it to the dean's," he cried, "because Lady Clementina
will suspect it is not nobly, and my uncle will suspect it is not
lawfully, born. Nor must I take it to Lord Bendham's for the self-same
reason, though, could it call Lady Bendham mother, this whole village,
nay, the whole country round, would ring with rejoicings for its birth.
How strange!" continued he, "that we should make so little of human
creatures, that one sent among us, wholly independent of his own high
value, becomes a curse instead of a blessing by the mere accident of
circumstances."

He now, after walking out of the wood, peeped through the folds of his
coat to look again at his charge. He started, turned pale, and trembled
to behold what, in the surprise of first seeing the child, had escaped
his observation. Around its little throat was a cord entwined by a
slipping noose, and drawn half way--as if the trembling hand of the
murderer had revolted from its dreadful office, and he or she had heft
the infant to pine away in nakedness and hunger, rather than see it die.

Again Henry wished himself joy of the treasure he had found; and more
fervently than before; for he had not only preserved one fellow-creature
from death, but another from murder.

Once more he looked at his charge, and was transported to observe, upon
its serene brow and sleepy eye, no traces of the dangers it had passed--no
trait of shame either for itself or its parents--no discomposure at the
unwelcome reception it was likely to encounter from a proud world! He
now slipped the fatal string from its neck; and by this affectionate
disturbance causing the child to cry, he ran (but he scarcely knew
whither) to convey it to a better nurse.

He at length found himself at the