more. But when he would have continued to speak comfort, or exhort to patience, she pressed his hand tightly, and laid her finger on her lip. He was hushed in an instant.
Presently she began to move about the room, busying herself, as usual, in those slight, scarce perceptible arrangements by which she loved to think that she ministered to the old man's simple comforts. She placed the arm-chair in his favorite nook by the window, and before it the footstool for the poor lame foot; and drew the table near the chair, and looked over the books that George had selected for his perusal from Darrell's library; and chose the volume in which she saw his mark to palce nearest to his hand, and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-glass; and removed one or two withered or ailing snow-drops from the little winter nosegay she had gathered for him the day before—he watching her all the time, silent as herself, not daring, indeed, to speak, lest his heart should overflow.
These little tasks of love over, she came toward him a few paces, and said, "Please, dear grandfather, tell me all about what has happened to yourself which should make us glad—that is, by and by; but nothing as to the rest of that letter. I will just think over it by myself; but never let us talk of it, grandy dear, never more—never more."
CHAPTER X.
Usually, when Sophy left Waife in the morning, she would wander out into the grounds, and he could see her pass before his window; or she would look into the library, which was almost exclusively given up to the Morleys, and he could hear her tread on the old creaking stairs. But now she had stolen into her own room, which communicated with his sitting-room—a small lobby alone intervening—and there she remained so long that he grew uneasy. He crept softly to her door and listened. He had a fineness of hearing almost equal to his son's; but he could not hear a sob—not a breath. At length he softly opened the door, and looked in with caution.
The girl was seated at the foot of the bed, quite still—her eyes fixed on the ground, and her finger to her lip, just as she
