ended by relieving the grief that caused them. Wearied out of conjecture and complaint, her mind relapsed into the old native, childish submission. With a fervor in which there was self-reproach, she repeated her meek, nightly prayer, that God would bless her dear grandfather, and suffer her to be his comfort and support. Then mechanically she undressed, extinguished the candle, and crept into bed. The moonlight became bolder and bolder: it advanced up the floors, along the walls; now it floods her very pillow, and seems to her eyes to take a holy, loving kindness, holier and more loving as the lids droop beneath it. A vague remembrance of some tale of "Guardian spirits," with which Waife had once charmed her wonder, stirred through her lulling thoughts, linking itself with the presence of that encircling moonlight. There! see, the eyelids are closed—no tear upon their fringe. See the dimples steal out as the sweet lips are parted. She sleeps, she dreams already! Where and what is the rude world of waking now? Are there not guardian spirits? Deride the question if thou wilt, stern man, the reasoning and self-reliant: but thou, O fair mother, who hast marked the strange happiness on the face of a child that has wept itself to sleep—what sayest thou to the soft tradition, which surely had its origin in the heart of the earliest mother
CHAPTER XV.
There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.
Meanwhile the Comedian had made himself and Sir Isaac extremely comfortable. No unabstemious man by habit was Gentleman Waife. He could dine on a crust, and season it with mirth; and as for exciting drinks, there was a childlike innocence in his humor not known to a brain that has been washed in alcohol. But on this special occasion, Waife's heart was made so bounteous by the novel sense of prosperity that it compelled him to treat himself. He did honor to the grilled chicken, to which he vainly tempted Sophy. He ordered half a pint of port to be mulled into negus. He helped himself with a bow, as if himself were a guest, and nodded each time he took off his glass, as much as to say, "Your health, Mr. Waife!" He even offered a glass of the exhilarating draught to Sir Isaac, who, exceedingly offended, retreated under the sofa, whence he peered forth through his deciduous ringlets,
