"'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your pennyless and friendless young orphan-girl, when you find her.'
"'Oh! could I find her such as I image her. Something to tame first, and teach afterwards: to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over, and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father. Oh!' (I went on) 'my orphan girl would give me many a kiss; she would watch on the threshold for my coming home of an evening; she would run into my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she would make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.'
"Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened; but she reclosed them, and impetuously turned away.
"'Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!'
"Another movement: all haughtiness, and fire, and impulse.
"'I must know. You can tell me. You shall tell me.'
"'I never will.'
"She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always parted from me? No: I had gone too far not to finish. I had come too near the end
