fectionate human child; nothing theatrical about her
now, yet still, in her graceful movements, so nimble but so noiseless,
in her slight fair hands, in her transparent colouring, there was
Nature's own lady,--that SOMETHING which strikes us all as well-born and
high-bred: not that it necessarily is so; the semblances of aristocracy,
in female childhood more especially, are often delusive. The
_souvenance_ flower, wrought into the collars of princes, springs up
wild on field and fell.

Gentleman Waife, wrapped negligently in a gray dressing-gown and seated
in an old leathern easy-chair, was evidently out of sorts. He did not
seem to heed the little preparations for his comfort, but, resting his
cheek on his right hand, his left drooped on his crossed knees,--an
attitude rarely seen in a man when his heart is light and his spirits
high. His lips moved: he was talking to himself. Though he had laid
aside his theatrical bandage over both eyes, he wore a black patch
over one, or rather where one had been; the eye exposed was of singular
beauty, dark and brilliant. For the rest, the man had a striking
countenance, rugged, and rather ugly than otherwise, but by no means
unprepossessing; full of lines and wrinkles and strong muscle, with
large lips of wondrous pliancy, and an aspect of wistful sagacity, that,
no doubt, on occasion could become exquisitely comic,--dry comedy,--the
comedy that makes others roar when the comedian himself is as grave as a
judge.

You might see in his countenance, when quite in its natural repose, that
Sorrow had passed by there; yet the instant the countenance broke into
play, you would think that Sorrow must have been sent about her business
as soon as the respect due to that visitor, so accustomed to have her
own way, would permit. Though the man was old, you could not call
him aged. One-eyed and crippled, still, marking the muscular arm, the
expansive chest, you would have scarcely called him broken or infirm.
And hence there was a certain indescribable pathos in his whole
appearance, as if Fate had branded, on face and form, characters in
which might be read her agencies on career and mind,--plucked an eye
from intelligence, shortened one limb for life's progress, yet left whim
sparkling out in the eye she had spared, and a light heart's wild spring
in the limb she had maimed not.

"Come, Grandy, come," said the little girl, coaxingly; "your tea will
get quite cold; your toast is ready, and