on his knees by Madonna's chair; preventing her from
leaving it, which she tried to do, by taking immediate possession of the
slate that hung at her side.

While young Thorpe was scribbling questions, protestations, and
extravagances of every kind, in rapid succession, on the slate; and
while Madonna, her face half smiling, half tearful, as she felt that he
was looking up at it--was reading what he wrote, trying hard, at first,
not to believe in him too easily when he scribbled an explanation,
and not to look down on him too leniently when he followed it up by an
entreaty; and ending at last, in defiance of Mrs. Blyth's private signs
to the contrary, in forgiving his carelessness, and letting him take her
hand again as usual, in token that she was sincere,--while this little
scene of the home drama was proceeding at one end of the room, a scene
of another kind--a dialogue in mysterious whispers--was in full progress
between Mr. Blyth and his visitor from the country, at the other.

Time had in no respect lessened Valentine's morbid anxiety about the
strict concealment of every circumstance attending Mrs. Peckover's first
connection with Madonna, and Madonna's mother. The years that had now
passed and left him in undisputed possession of his adopted child, had
not diminished that excess of caution in keeping secret all the little
that was known of her early history, which had even impelled him to
pledge Doctor and Mrs. Joyce never to mention in public any particulars
of the narrative related at the Rectory. Still, he had not got over his
first dread that she might one day be traced, claimed, and taken away
from him, if that narrative, meagre as it was, should ever be trusted
to other ears than those which had originally listened to it. Still,
he kept the hair bracelet and the handkerchief that had belonged to her
mother carefully locked up out of sight in his bureau; and still, he
doubted Mrs. Peckover's discretion in the government of her tongue,
as he had doubted it in the bygone days when the little girl was first
established in his own home.

After making a pretense of showing her the drawings begun that evening,
Mr. Blyth artfully contrived to lead Mrs. Peckover past them into a
recess at the extreme end of the room.

"Well," he said, speaking in an unnecessarily soft whisper, considering
the distance which now separated him from Zack. "Well, I suppose you're
quite sure of not having let out anything by chance, s