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 certan 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 here is such a nice egg—Mr. Merle says you may be sure it is new laid. Come, don't let that hateful man fret you; smile on your own Sophy—come."
"If"—said Mr. Waife, in a hollow undertone—"if I were alone in the world."
"Oh! Grandy."
"I know a spot on which a bed-post grows,
And do remember where a roper lives.'
Delightful prospect, not to be indulged: for if I were in peace at one end of the rope, what would chance to my Sophy, left forlorn at the other?"
"Don't talk so, or I shall think you are sorry to have taken care of me."
"Care of thee, O child! and what care? It is thou who takest care of me. Put thy hands from my mouth; sit down, darling, there, opposite, and let us talk. Now, Sophy, thou hast often said that thou would be glad to be out of this mode of life even for one humbler and harder: think well—is it so?"
"Oh! yes, indeed, grandfather."
"No more tinsel dresses and flowery wreaths; no more applause; no more of the dear divine stage excitement; the heroine and fairy vanished; only a little commonplace child in dingy gingham, with a purblind cripple for thy sole charge and playmate; Juliet Araminta evaporated evermore into little Sophy!"
"It would be so nice!" answered little Sophy, laughing merrily.
"What would make it nice?" asked the comedian, turning on her his solitary piercing eye, with curious interest in his gaze.
Sophy left her seat, and placed herself on a stool at her grandfather's knee; on that knee she clasped her tiny hands, and shaking aside her curls, looked into his face with confident fond-
