en tarnished by some
plausible circumstantial evidences which he could not explain away
to the satisfaction of friends or the acquittal of a short-sighted
world--had there not been, were there not always, many innocent men
similarly afflicted? And who could hear Waife talk, or look on his arch
smile, and not feel that he was innocent? So, at least, thought Caroline
Montfort. Naturally; for if, in her essentially woman-like character,
there was one all-pervading and all-predominant attribute, it was PITY.
Lead Fate placed her under circumstances fitted to ripen into genial
development all her exquisite forces of soul, her true post in this life
would have been that of the SOOTHER. What a child to some grief-worn
father! What a wife to some toiling, aspiring, sensitive man of genius!
What a mother to some suffering child! It seemed as if it were necessary
to her to have something to compassionate and foster. She was sad when
there was no one to comfort; but her smile was like a sunbeam from Eden
when it chanced on a sorrow it could brighten away. Out of this very
sympathy came her faults--faults of reasoning and judgment. Prudent in
her own chilling path through what the world calls temptations, because
so ineffably pure--because, to Fashion's light tempters, her very
thought was as closed, as

"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"

was the ear of Sabrina to the comrades of Comus,--yet place before her
some gentle scheme that seemed fraught with a blessing for others,
and straightway her fancy embraced it, prudence faded--she saw not the
obstacles, weighed not the chances against it. Charity to her did not
come alone, but with its sister twins, Hope and Faith.

Thus, benignly for the old man and the fair child, years rolled on till
Lord Montfort's sudden death, and his widow was called upon to exchange
Montfort Court (which passed to the new heir) for the distant jointure
House of Twickenham. By this time she had grown so attached to Sophy,
and Sophy so gratefully fond of her, that she proposed to Waife to take
his sweet grandchild as her permanent companion, complete her education,
and assure her future. This had been the old man's cherished day-dream;
but he had not contemplated its realisation until he himself were in
the grave. He turned pale, he staggered, when the proposal which would
separate him from his grandchild was first brought before him. But he
recovered ere Lady Montfort could be aware of t