you returned the child kissing her cheek you are always kind to me and it is a pleasure to talk to you i � an speak to no one else about him but poor i am very happy still i ought to feel happier perhaps than i do but you cannot think how it me sometimes to see him alter so he alter again said mrs and be what he was before oh if god would only let that come about said the child with streaming eyes but it is a long time now since he first began to � i thought i saw that door moving it s the wind said mrs began to� to be so thoughts and dejected and to forget our old way of spending the time in the long evenings said the child i used to read to him by the fireside and he sat listening and when i stopped and we began to talk he told me about my mother and how she once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child then he used to take me on hi knee and try to make me understand that she was not her grave but had flown to a country beyond ike sky where nothing died or ever grew old � we were very happy once � said the poor woman i can t bear to see one as yoimg as you so sorrowful pray don t cry i do so very seldom said but i have kept this to myself a long time and i am not quite well i think for the tears come into my eyes and i cannot keep them back i don t mind telling you my grief for i know you will not teu it to any one again thb old shop mrs turned away her and made no answer then said the child we often walked in the fields and among the green trees and when we came home at night we liked it better for being tired and said what a happy place it was and if it was dark and rather we used to say what did it matter to us for it only made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure and look forward to our next one but now we never have these walks and though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be indeed she paused here but though the door more than once mrs said nothing mind you don t suppose said the child earnestly that grandfather is less kind to me than he was i think he loves me better every day and is kinder and more than he was the day before you do not know how fond he is of me i m sure he loves you dearly said mrs indeed indeed he does cried as dearly as i love him but i have not told you the greatest change of all and this you must never breathe again to any one he has no sleep or rest but that which he takes by day in his easy chair for every night and nearly all night long he is away from home said the child laying her finger on her lip and looking round when he comes home in the morning which is generally just before day i let him in last night he was very late and it was quite light i saw that his face was deadly pale that his eyes were and that his legs trembled as he walked when i had gone to bed again i heard him groan i got up and ran back to him and heard � say before he knew that i was there that he could not bear his life much longer and if it was not for the child would wish to die what shall i do oh what shall i do the fountains of her heart were opened the child overpowered by the weight of her sorrows and anxieties by the first confidence she had ever shown and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend and burst into a passion of tears the old shop in a few moments mr returned and expressed the utmost surprise to find her in this condition which he did very naturally and with admirable effect for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long practice and he was quite at home in it she s tired you see mrs said the dwarf in a hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead it s a long way from her home to the wharf and then she was alarmed to see a couple of young fighting and was on the water besides all this together has been too much for her poor mr adopted the very best means he have devised for the recovery of his young visitor by patting her on the head such an application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable effect but the child shrunk so quickly � rom his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach that she rose directly and herself ready to return but you d better wait and dine with mrs and me said the dwarf i have been away too long sir already returned drying her eyes well said mr if you will go you will here s the note it s only to say that i shall see him tomorrow or maybe next day and that i couldn t do that little business for him this morning good bye here you sir take care of her d ye hear eat who appeared at the summons to make no reply to so needless an and after staring at in a 