(not at Humberston, but a more
distant and yet more thriving town about twenty miles off) for as much
of such work as he could supply. Each week the carrier took his goods
and brought back the payments; the profits amply sufficed for Waife's
and Sophy's daily bread, with even more than the surplus set aside for
the rent. For the rest, the basketmaker's cottage being at the farthest
outskirts of the straggling village inhabited by a labouring peasantry,
his way of life was not much known nor much inquired into. He seemed a
harmless, hard-working man; never seen at the beer-house; always seen
with his neatly-dressed little grandchild in his quiet corner at church
on Sundays; a civil, well-behaved man too; who touched his hat to the
bailiff and took it off to the vicar.

An idea prevailed that the basketmaker had spent much of his life in
foreign countries, favoured partly by a sobriety of habits which is
not altogether national, partly by something in his appearance, which,
without being above his lowly calling, did not seem quite in keeping
with it,--outlandish in short,--but principally by the fact that he had
received since his arrival two letters with a foreign postmark. The idea
befriended the old man,--allowing it to be inferred that he had probably
outlived the friends he had formerly left behind him in England, and,
on his return, been sufficiently fatigued with his rambles to drop
contented in any corner of his native soil wherein he could find a quiet
home, and earn by light toil a decent livelihood.

George, though naturally curious to know what had been the result of his
communication to Mrs. Crane,--whether it had led to Waife's discovery or
caused him annoyance,--had hitherto, however, shrunk from touching upon
a topic which subjected himself to an awkward confession of officious
intermeddling, and to which any indirect allusion might appear an
indelicate attempt to pry into painful family affairs. But one day
he received a letter from his father which disturbed him greatly, and
induced him to break ground and speak to his preceptor frankly. In
this letter, the elder Mr. Morley mentioned incidentally, amongst other
scraps of local news, that he had seen Mr. Hartopp, who was rather out
of sorts, his good heart not having recovered the shock of having been
abominably "taken in" by an impostor for whom he had conceived a great
fancy, and to whose discovery George himself had providentially led (the
father refe