wandering race. The propensities of the vagabonds who have deserted him
are in every drop of his blood. All the parsons in the diocese won't
make a Christian of him, and when (after anxieties I shudder to foresee)
you flatter yourself that he is civilized, he will run away and leave
his shoes and stockings behind him."

"He has a soul to be saved, if he is a gipsy," said Miss Kitty,
hysterically.

"The soul, my dear Miss Kitty "--began the lawyer, facing round upon
her.

"Don't say anything dreadful about the soul, sir, I beg," said Miss
Betty, firmly. And then she added in a conciliatory tone, "Won't you
look at the little fellow, sir? I have no doubt his relations are
shocking people; but when you see his innocent little face and his
beautiful eyes, I think you'll say yourself that if he were a duke's son
he couldn't be a finer child."

"My experience of babies is so limited, Miss Betty," said the lawyer,
"that really--if you'll excuse me--but I can quite imagine him. I have
before now been tempted myself to adopt stray--puppies, when I have seen
them in the round, soft, innocent, bright-eyed stage. And when they have
grown up in the hands of more credulous friends into lanky,
ill-conditioned, misconducted curs, I have congratulated myself that I
was not misled by the graces of an age at which ill-breeding is less
apparent than later in life."

The little ladies both rose. "If you see no difference, sir," said Miss
Betty in her stateliest manner, "between a babe with an immortal soul