n caught sight of me, though I kept on his blind side. I employed a
ragged boy to watch and follow him, and here is the address. Now,
will you get Sophy back for me without any trouble to me, without my
appearing? I would rather charge a regiment of horse-guards than bully
that old man."

"Yet you would rob him of the child,--his sole comfort?"

"Bother!" cried Losely, impatiently; "the child can be only a burden to
him; well out of his way; 't is for the sake of that child he is selling
matches! It would be the greatest charity we could do him to set him
free from that child sponging on him, dragging him down; without her
he'd find a way to shift for himself. Why, he's even cleverer than I am!
And there--there; give him this money, but don't say it came from me."

He thrust, without counting, several sovereigns--at least twelve or
fourteen--into Mrs. Crane's palm; and so powerful a charm has goodness
the very least, even in natures the most evil, that that unusual,
eccentric, inconsistent gleam of human pity in Jasper Losely's benighted
soul shed its relenting influence over the angry, wrathful, and
vindictive feelings with which Mrs. Crane the moment before regarded
the perfidious miscreant; and she gazed at him with a sort of melancholy
wonder. What! though so little sympathizing with affection that he could
not comprehend that he was about to rob the old man of a comfort which
no gold could repay; what though so contemptuously callous to his
own child,--yet there in her hand lay the unmistakable token that a
something of humanity, compunction, compassion, still lingered in the
breast of the greedy cynic; and at that thought all that was softest in
her own human nature moved towards him, indulgent, gentle. But in the
rapid changes of the heart feminine, the very sentiment that touched
upon love brought back the jealousy that bordered upon hate. How came he
by so much money? more than days ago he, the insatiate spendthrift, had
received for his task-work? And that POCKETBOOK!

"You have suddenly grown rich, Jasper."

For a moment he looked confused, but replied as he rehelped himself to
the brandy, "Yes, rouge-et-noir,--luck. Now, do go and see after this
affair, that's a dear good woman. Get the child to-day if you can; I
will call here in the evening."

"Should you take her, then, abroad at once to this worthy lady who will
adopt her? If so, we shall meet, I suppose, no, more; and I am assisting
you to forget