"A week later, Aggie was born. Ten days afterwards, I laid her mother
by the side of her father. No answer had come to the letters he had
written to you, while he had been ill, though in the later ones he had
told you that he was dying. So, I looked upon the child as mine.

"Things had gone badly with me. I had been able to take no lodgers,
while they were with me. I had got into debt, and even could I have
cleared myself, I could not well have kept the house on, without a
woman to look after it. I was restless, too, and longed to be moving
about. So I sold off the furniture, paid my debts, and laid by the
money that remained, for the child's use in the future.

"I had, some time before, met an old comrade travelling the country
with a show. I happened to meet him again, just as I was leaving, and
he told me the name of a man, in London, who sold such things. I left
the child, for a year, with some people I knew, a few miles out of
Southampton; came up to London, bought a show, and started. It was
lonely work, at first; but, after a year, I fetched the child away, and
took her round the country with me, and for four years had a happy time
of it.

"I had chosen this part of the country, and, after a time, I became
uneasy in my mind, as to whether I was doing right; and whether, for
the child's sake, I ought not to tell you that she was alive, and offer
to give her up, if you were willing to take her. I heard how your son's
death had changed you, and thought that, maybe, you would like to take
his daughter; but, before bringing her to you, I thought she should
have a better education than I had time to give her, and that she
should be placed with a lady, so that, if you took her, you need not be