r health? Do you not see how delicate she is? Do you not
see that her very talent comes from her susceptibility to emotions which
must wear her away?"

WAIFE.-"No, no! stop, stop, stop! you terrify me, you break my heart.
Man, man! it is all for her that I toil and show and beg,--if you call
it begging. Do you think I care what becomes of this battered hulk? Not
a straw. What am I to do? What! what! You tell me to confide in you;
wherefore? How can you help me? Would you give me employment? What am I
fit for? Nothing! You could find work and bread for an Irish labourer,
nor ask who or what he was; but to a man who strays towards you,
seemingly from a sphere in which, if Poverty enters, she drops a
courtesy, and is called 'genteel,' you cry, 'Hold, produce your
passport; where are your credentials, references?' I have none. I have
slipped out of the world I once moved in. I can no more appeal to those
I knew in it than if I had transmigrated from one of yon stars, and
said, 'See there what I was once!' Oh, but you do not think she looks
ill!--do you? do you? Wretch that I am! And I thought to save her!"

The old man trembled from head to foot, and his cheek was as pale as
ashes.

Again the good magistrate took his hand, but this time the clasp was
encouraging. "Cheer up: where there is a will there is a way; you
justify the opinion I formed in your favour despite all circumstances
to the contrary. When I asked you to confide in me, it was not from
curiosity, but because I would serve you if I can. Reflect on what I
have said. True, you can know but little of me. Learn what is said of
me by my neighbours before you trust me further. For the rest, to-morrow
you will have many proposals to renew your performance. Excuse me if I
do not actively encourage it. I will not, at least, interfere to your
detriment; but--"

"But," exclaimed Waife, not much heeding this address, "but you think
she looks ill? you think this is injuring her? you think I am murdering
my grandchild,--my angel of life, my all?"

"Not so; I spoke too bluntly. Yet still--"

"Yes, yes, yet still--"

"Still, if you love her so dearly, would you blunt her conscience and
love of truth? Were you not an impostor tonight? Would you ask her to
reverence and imitate and pray for an impostor?"

"I never saw it in that light!" faltered Waife, struck to the soul;
"never, never, so help me Heaven!"

"I felt sure you did not," said the Mayor; "you saw but the