mence through the leather destined to the repair of a ploughman's boot.
"Gone—for good!" cried Lionel; "you cannot mean it. I call by appointment."
"Sorry, sir, for your trouble. Stop a bit; I have a letter here for you." The Cobbler dived into a drawer, and from a medley of nails and thongs drew forth a letter addressed to L. Haughton, Esq.
"Is this from Waife? How on earth did he know my surname? you never mentioned it, Vance?"
"Not that I remember. But you said you found him at the inn, and they knew it there. It is on the brass-plate of your knapsack. No matter,—what does he say?" and Vance looked over his friend's shoulder and read.
"SIR,—I most respectfully thank you for your condescending kindness
to me and my grandchild; and your friend, for his timely and
generous aid. You will pardon me that the necessity which knows no
law obliges me to leave this place some hours before the time of
your proposed visit. My grandchild says you intended to ask her
sometimes to write to you. Excuse me, sir—on reflection, you will
perceive how different your ways of life are from those which she
must tread with me. You see before you a man who—but I forget; you
see him no more, and probably never will.
Your most humble and most obliged, obedient servant,
W. W.
Vance. "Who never more may trouble you—trouble you! Where have they
gone?"
Cobbler. "Don't know; would you like to take a peep in the crystal—perhaps you've the gift, unbeknown?"
Vance. "Not I—bah! Come away, Lionel."
"Did not Sophy even leave any message for me?" asked the boy, sorrowfully.
"To be sure she did; I forgot-no, not exactly a message, but this—I was to be sure to give it to you." And out of his miscellaneous receptacle the Cobbler extracted a little book. Vance looked and laughed,—"The Butterflies' Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast."
Lionel did not share the laugh. He plucked the book to himself, and read on the fly-leaf, in a child's irregular scrawl, blistered, too, with the unmistakable trace of fallen tears, these words:
Do not Scorn it. I have nothing else I can think of which
