here is such a nice egg; Mr.
Merle says you may be sure it is new laid. Come, don't let that hateful
man fret you: smile on your own Sophy; come."

"If," said Mr. Waife, in a hollow undertone, if I were alone in the
world--"

"Oh, Grandy!"

"'I know a spot on which a bed-post grows,
And do remember where a roper lives.'

Delightful prospect, not to be indulged; for if I were in peace at one
end of the rope, what would chance to my Sophy, left forlorn at the
other?"

"Don't talk so, or I shall think you are sorry to have taken care of
me."

"Care of thee, oh, child! and what care? It is thou who takest care of
me. Put thy hands from thy mouth; sit down, darling, there, opposite,
and let us talk. Now, Sophy, thou hast often said that thou wouldst be
glad to be out of this mode of life, even for one humbler and harder:
think well, is it so?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, grandfather."

"No more tinsel dresses and flowery wreaths; no more applause; no more
of the dear divine stage excitement; the heroine and fairy vanished;
only a little commonplace child in dingy gingham, with a purblind
cripple for thy sole charge and playmate; Juliet Araminta evaporated
evermore into little Sophy!"

"It would be so nice!" answered little Sophy, laughing merrily.

"What would make it nice?" asked the Comedian, turning on her his
solitary piercing eye, with curious interest in his gaze.

Sophy left her seat, and placed herself on a stool at her grandfather's
knee; on that knee she clasped her tiny hands, and shaking aside her
curls, looked into his face with confident fondness. Evidently these two
were much more than grandfather and grandchild: they were friends, they
were equals, they were in the habit of consulting and prattling with
each other. She got at his meaning, however covert his humour; and he to
the core of her heart, through its careless babble. Between you and me,
Reader, I suspect that, in spite of the Comedian's sagacious wrinkles,
the one was as much a child as the other.

"Well," said Sophy, "I will tell you, Grandy, what would make it nice:
no one would vex and affront you,--we should be all by ourselves; and
then, instead of those nasty lamps and those dreadful painted creatures,
we could go out and play in the fields and gather daisies; and I could
run after butterflies, and when I am tired I should come here, where I
am now, any time of the day, and you would tell me stories and pretty
verses, an