the child in vain to take some refreshment, bestowed on her his kiss and
blessing, and whistled "/Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre/" to Sir Isaac,
who, considering that melody an invitation to supper, licked his lips,
and stalked forth, rejoicing, but decorous.

Left alone, the child breathed long and hard, pressing her hands to her
bosom, and sank wearily on the foot of the bed. There were no shutters
to the window, and the moonlight came in gently, stealing across that
part of the wall and floor which the ray of the candle left in shade.
The girl raised her eyes slowly towards the window,--towards the glimpse
of the blue sky, and the slanting lustre of the moon. There is a certain
epoch in our childhood, when what is called the romance of sentiment
first makes itself vaguely felt. And ever with the dawn of that
sentiment the moon and the stars take a strange and haunting fascination.
Few persons in middle life-even though they be genuine poets--feel the
peculiar spell in the severe stillness and mournful splendour of starry
skies which impresses most of us, even though no poets at all, in that
mystic age when Childhood nearly touches upon Youth, and turns an unquiet
heart to those marvellous riddles within us and without, which we cease
to conjecture when experience has taught us that they have no solution
upon this side the grave. Lured by the light, the child rose softly,
approached the window, and, resting her upturned face upon both hands,
gazed long into the heavens, communing evidently with herself, for her
lips moved and murmured indistinctly. Slowly she retired from the
casement, and again seated herself at the foot of the bed, disconsolate.
And then her thoughts ran somewhat thus, though she might not have shaped
them exactly in the same words: "No, I cannot understand it. Why was I
contented and happy before I knew him? Why did I see no harm, no shame
in this way of life--not even on that stage with those people--until he
said, 'It was what he wished I had never stooped to'? And Grandfather