ruth," said Sophy, lifting up to him her pure eyes with such
heavenly, loving kindness that, if the words did imply reproof, the
eyes stole it away. "Could we but manage to tell truth off the stage, I
should not dislike acting! Oh, Grandfather, when that kind gentleman
and his lady and those merry children come up and speak to us, don't you
feel ready to creep into the earth?--I do. Are we telling truth? are we
living truth? one name to-day, another name to morrow? I should not
mind acting on a stage or in a room, for the time, but always acting,
always,--we ourselves 'make beliefs!' Grandfather, must that be? They
don't do it; I mean by they, all who are good and looked up to and
respected, as--as--oh, Grandy! Grandy! what am I saying? I have pained
you."

Waife indeed was striving hard to keep down emotion; but his lips were
set firmly and the blood had left them, and his hands were trembling.

"We must, hide ourselves," he said in a very low voice; "we must take
false names; I--because--because of reasons I can't tell even to you;
and you, because I failed to get you a proper home, where you ought to
be; and there is one who, if he pleases, and he may please it any day,
could take you away from me, if he found you out; and so--and so--" He
paused abruptly, looked at her fearful wondering soft face, and, rising,
drew himself up with one of those rare outbreaks of dignity which
elevated the whole character of his person. "But as for me," said he,
"if I have lost all name; if, while I live, I must be this wandering,
skulking outcast,--look above, Sophy,--look up above: there all secrets
will be known, all hearts read; and there my best hope to find a place
in which I may wait your coming is in what has lost me all birthright
here. Not to exalt myself do I say this,--no; but that you may have
comfort, darling, if ever hereafter you are pained by what men say to
you of me."

As he spoke, the expression of his face, at first solemn and lofty,
relaxed into melancholy submission. Then passing his arm into hers, and
leaning on it as if sunk once more into the broken cripple needing her
frail support, he drew her forth from the arbour, and paced the little
garden slowly, painfully. At length he seemed to recover himself, and
said in his ordinary cheerful tone, "But to the point in question,
suppose we have done with acting and roaming, and keep to one name and
settle somewhere like plain folks, again I ask, How shall we live