hat season of the year they had visitors almost
daily. The old man would follow them at a little distance through the
building, listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the
strangers left, and parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to
catch up fragments of their conversation; or he would stand for the
same purpose, with his grey head uncovered, at the gate as they passed
through.

They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud
to hear them! But what was that, so often added, which wrung his
heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner! Alas!
even careless strangers--they who had no feeling for her, but the
interest of the moment--they who would go away and forget next week
that such a being lived--even they saw it--even they pitied her--even
they bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed.

The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to
have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same
feeling; a tenderness towards her--a compassionate regard for her,
increasing every day. The very schoolboys, light-hearted and
thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her. The roughest among
them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his way to
school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the latticed
window. If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps might peep in
softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her, unless she rose
and went to speak to them. Some feeling was abroad which raised the
child above them all.

So, when Sunday came. They were all poor country people in the church,
for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin,
and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around. There, as
elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell. They would gather round her
in the porch, before and after service; young children would cluster at
her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her
kindly greeting. None of them, young or old, thought of passing the
child without a friendly word. Many who came from three or four miles
distant, brought her little presents; the humblest and rudest had good
wishes to bestow.

She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the
churchyard. One of these--he who had spoken of his brother--was her
little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church,
or clim