ll not be separated from the little girl; they
seemed very fond of each other."

MRS. CRANE.--"No doubt of it; very fond: it would be cruel to separate
them. A comfortable home for both. I don't know, sir, if I dare offer to
a gentleman of your evident rank the reward,--but for the poor of your
parish."

OXONIAN.--"Oh, ma'am, our poor want for nothing: my father is rich. But
if you would oblige me by a line after you have found these interesting
persons; I am going to a distant part of the country to-morrow,--to
Montfort Court, in -------shire."

MRS. CRANE.--"To Lord Montfort, the head of the noble family of Vipont?"

OXONIAN.--"Yes; do you know any of the family, ma'am? If you could refer
me to one of them, I should feel more satisfied as to--"

MRS. CRANE (hastily).--"Indeed, sir, every one must know that great
family by name and repute. I know no more. So you are going to Lord
Montfort's! The Marchioness, they say, is very beautiful."

OXONIAN.--"And good as beautiful. I have the honour to be connected both
with her and Lord Montfort; they are cousins, and my grandfather was a
Vipont. I should have told you my name,--Morley; George Vipont Morley."

Mrs. Crane made a profound courtesy, and, with an unmistakable smile of
satisfaction, said, as if half in soliloquy, "So it is to one of that
noble family--to a Vipont--that the dear child will owe her restoration
to my embrace! Bless you, sir!"

"I hope I have done right," said George Vipont Morley, as he mounted his
horse. "I must have done right, surely!" he said again, when he was on
the high road. "I fear I have not done right," he said a third time, as
the face of Mrs. Crane began to haunt him; and when at sunset he reached
his home, tired out, horse and man, with an unusually long ride, and the
green water-bank on which he had overheard poor Waife's simple grace and
joyous babble came in sight, "After all," he said dolefully, "it was no
business of mine."

"I meant well; but--" His little sister ran to the gate to greet him.
"Yes, I did quite right. How should I like my sister to be roving the
country, and acting at Literary Institutes 'with a poodle dog? Quite
right; kiss me, Jane!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Let a king and a beggar converse freely together, and it is the
beggar's fault if he does not say something which makes the king
lift his hat to him.

The scene shifts back to Gatesboro', the forenoon of the day succeeding
the memorable ex