d I have a reason (you have not forgotten it) for loving
you. I have felt since that time as if my love for him who died, had
been transferred to you who stood beside his bed. If this,' he added,
looking upwards, 'is the beautiful creation that springs from ashes,
let its peace prosper with me, as I deal tenderly and compassionately
by this young child!'

The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the affectionate
earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which was stamped upon
his every word and look, gave the child a confidence in him, which the
utmost arts of treachery and dissimulation could never have awakened in
her breast. She told him all--that they had no friend or
relative--that she had fled with the old man, to save him from a
madhouse and all the miseries he dreaded--that she was flying now, to
save him from himself--and that she sought an asylum in some remote
and primitive place, where the temptation before which he fell would
never enter, and her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.

The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment. 'This child!'--he
thought--'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts and
dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and sustained by
strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude alone! And yet the
world is full of such heroism. Have I yet to learn that the hardest
and best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any
earthly record, and are suffered every day! And should I be surprised
to hear the story of this child!'

What more he thought or said, matters not. It was concluded that Nell
and her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was
bound, and that he should endeavour to find them some humble occupation
by which they could subsist. 'We shall be sure to succeed,' said the
schoolmaster, heartily. 'The cause is too good a one to fail.'

They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as
they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the driver
for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside. A bargain was
soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it rolled away; with
the child comfortably bestowed among the softer packages, her
grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside the driver, and the
landlady and all the good folks of the inn screaming out their good
wishe