s
drunken brain. The look of virtuous indignation returned, and staring
at the little girl through glazed eyes, he said with the tremulous
and tearful voice of a deeply injured parent,

'Winifred, I thought I heard you singing one of them heathen Gypsy
songs that you learnt of the Gypsies in Wales.'

'No, father,' said she, 'it was the song they sing in Shire-Carnarvon
about the golden cloud over Snowdon and the spirits of the air.'

'Yes,' said Tom, 'but a little time ago you were singing a Gypsy
song--a downright heathen Gypsy song. I heard it about half an hour
ago when I was in the church.'

The beautiful little head drooped in shame.

'I'm s'prised at you, Winifred. When I come to think whose daughter
you are.--mine!--I'm s'prised at you,' continued Torn, whose virtuous
indignation waxed with every word.

'Oh. I'm so sorry!' said the child. 'I won't do it any more.'

This contrition of the child's only fanned the flame of Tom's
virtuous indignation.

'Here am I,' said he, 'the most (hiccup) respectable man in two
parishes,--except Master Aylwin's father, of course,--here am I, the
organ-player for the Christianest of all the Christian churches along
the coast, and here's my daughter sings heathen songs just like a
Gypsy or a tinker. I'm s'prised at you, Winifred.'

I had often seen Tom in a dignified state of liquor, but the pathetic
expression of injured virtue that again overspread his face so
changed it, that I had some difficulty myself in realising how
entirely the tears filling his eyes and the grief at his heart were
of alcoholic origin. And as to the little girl, she began to sob
piteously.

'Oh dear, oh dear, what a wicked girl I am !' said she.

This exclamation, however, aroused my ire against Tom; and as I
always looked upon him as my special paid henchman, who, in return
for such services as supplying me with tiny boxing-gloves, and
fishing-tackle, and bait, during my hale days, and tame rabbits now
that I was a cripple, mostly contrived to possess himself of my
pocket-money, I had no hesitation in exclaiming,

'Why, Tom, you know you're drunk, you silly old fool!'

At this Tom turned his mournful and reproachful gaze upon me, and
began to weep anew. Then he turned and addressed the sea, uplifting
his hand in oratorical fashion:--

'Here's a young gentleman as I've been more than a father to--yes,
more than a father to--for when did his own father ever give him a
ferret-eyed rabbit,