-if
before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?"

"Why then no harm will be done--no violence will be committed. Her
grandfather,--drivelling and a miser, you say--can be appeased by a
little money, and it will be nobody's business, and no case can be made
of it. Tush! man! I always look before I leap! People in this world are
not so charitable as you suppose. What more natural than that a poor and
pretty girl--not as wise as Queen Elizabeth--should be tempted to pay a
visit to a rich lover!

"All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very
bad man, and that's saying nothing new of me. But don't think it will
be found out. Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome
piece of business--rather tried me. I am not so young as I was. Yes,
Dykeman, something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or
whatever his name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I
felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing
my pillows. A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to
make this girl like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer
and more serious attachment than usual,--a companion!"

"A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!--so ignorant--so
uneducated!"

"So much the better. This world palls upon me," said Lilburne, almost
gloomily. "I grow sick of the miserable quackeries--of the piteous
conceits that men, women, and children call 'knowledge,' I wish to catch
a glimpse of nature before I die. This creature interests me, and that
is something in this life. Clear those things away, and leave me."

"Ay!" muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, "when I first
heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and,
therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple,
I felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a
segment in the circle of my vengeance. But now, poor child!

"I forget all this. I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt
before, affection. I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand
what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father. I have not
one impure thought for that girl--not one. But I would give thousands
if she could love me. Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise
myself!"

Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose
refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and wha