And then, in an altered—­a low, sad tone—­he began a monotonous recital.

Thus they sat, he talking very steadily and she listening, until all the neighborhood was wrapped in slumber,—­all the neighbors, but not Kookoo.

Kookoo in his old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not intended for outside hearers.  He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man saying, “But you must go now.  You cannot stay with me safely or decently, much as I wish it.  The Lord only knows how I’m to bear it, or where you’re to go; but He’s your Lord, child, and He’ll make a place for you.  I was your grandfather’s death; I frittered your poor, dead mother’s fortune away:  let that be the last damage I do.

“I have always meant everything for the best,” he added half in soliloquy.

From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the very story just recounted.  She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding her face in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, “I cannot go, Papa George; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!”

Just then ’Sieur George, kaving kept a good resolution all day, was encouraged by the orphan’s pitiful tones to contemplate the most senseless act he ever attempted to commit.  He said to the sobbing girl that she was not of his blood; that she was nothing to him by natural ties; that his covenant was with her grandsire to care for his offspring; and though it had been poorly kept, it might be breaking it worse than ever to turn her out upon ever so kind a world.

“I have tried to be good to you all these years.  When I took you, a wee little baby, I took you for better or worse.  I intended to do well by you all your childhood-days, and to do best at last.  I thought surely we should be living well by this time, and you could choose from a world full of homes and a world full of friends.

“I don’t see how I missed it!” Here he paused a moment in meditation, and presently resumed with some suddenness: 

“I thought that education, far better than Mother Nativity has given you, should have afforded your sweet charms a noble setting; that good mothers and sisters would be wanting to count you into their families, and that the blossom of a happy womanhood would open perfect and full of sweetness.

“I would have given my life for it.  I did give it, such as it was; but it was a very poor concern, I know—­my life—­and not enough to buy any good thing.

“I have had a thought of something, but I’m afraid to tell it.  It didn’t come to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time—­for months.”

The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.

“And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, you might stay with me then.”

“How long?” she asked, without stirring.

“Oh, is long as heaven should let us.  But there is only one chance,” he said, as it were feeling his way.