emed pleased to hear they were both so
comfortably settled. The "lady" had been accompanied by another "lady,"
and by two or three young gentlemen. They had arrived in a "buss," which
they had hired for the occasion. They had come from Humberston the
day after those famous races which annually filled Humberston with
strangers--the time of year in which Rugge's grand theatrical exhibition
delighted that ancient town. From the description of the two ladies
Waife suspected that they belonged to Rugge's company.

But they had not claimed Waife as a ci-devant comrade; they had not
spoken of Sophy as the Phenomenon or the Fugitive. No molestation
followed this event; and, after all, the Remorseless Baron had no longer
any claim to the Persecuted Bandit or to Juliet Araminta.

But the ex-comedian is gone from the osiers--the hamlet. He is in his
new retreat by the lordly river--within an hour of the smoke and roar of
tumultuous London. He tries to look cheerful and happy, but his repose
is troubled--his heart is anxious. Ever since Sophy, on his account,
refused the offer which would have transferred her, not for a few daily
hours, but for habitual life, from a basketmaker's roof to all the
elegancies and refinements of a sphere in which, if freed from him,
her charms and virtues might win her some such alliance as seemed
impossible, while he was thus dragging her down to his own level,--ever
since that day the old man had said to himself, "I live too long." While
Sophy was by his side he appeared busy at his work and merry in his
humour; the moment she left him for Lady Montfort's house, the work
dropped from his hands, and he sank into moody thought.

Waife had written to Mrs. Crane (her address then was at Paris) on
removing to Twickenhain, and begged her to warn him should Jasper
meditate a return to England, by a letter directed to him at the General
Post-office, London. Despite his later trust in Mrs. Crane, he did not
deem it safe to confide to her Lady Montfort's offer to Sophy, or the
affectionate nature of that lady's intimacy with the girl now grown into
womanhood. With that insight into the human heart, which was in him not
so habitually clear and steadfast as to be always useful, but at times
singularly if erratically lucid, he could not feel assured that Arabella
Crane's ancient hate to Sophy (which, lessening in proportion to the
girl's destitution, had only ceased when the stern woman felt, with a
sentiment b