the basketmaker's cottage being at the farthest outskirts of the
straggling village inhabited by a labouring peasantry, his way of life
was not much known nor much inquired into. He seemed a harmless, hard-
working man; never seen at the beer-house; always seen with his neatly-
dressed little grandchild in his quiet corner at church on Sundays; a
civil, well-behaved man too; who touched his hat to the bailiff and took
it off to the vicar.

An idea prevailed that the basketmaker had spent much of his life in
foreign countries, favoured partly by a sobriety of habits which is not
altogether national, partly by something in his appearance, which,
without being above his lowly calling, did not seem quite in keeping with
it,--outlandish in short,--but principally by the fact that he had
received since his arrival two letters with a foreign postmark. The idea
befriended the old man,--allowing it to be inferred that he had probably
outlived the friends he had formerly left behind him in England, and, on
his return, been sufficiently fatigued with his rambles to drop contented
in any corner of his native soil wherein he could find a quiet home, and
earn by light toil a decent livelihood.

George, though naturally curious to know what had been the result of his
communication to Mrs. Crane,--whether it had led to Waife's discovery or
caused him annoyance,--had hitherto, however, shrunk from touching upon a
topic which subjected himself to an awkward confession of officious
intermeddling, and to which any indirect allusion might appear an
indelicate attempt to pry into painful family affairs. But one day he
received a letter from his father which disturbed him greatly, and
induced him to break ground and speak to his preceptor frankly. In this
letter, the elder Mr. Morley mentioned incidentally, amongst other scraps
of local news, that he had seen Mr. Hartopp, who was rather out of sorts,