that he should explain the mystery of Sophy's parentage and position to
Lady Montfort, and go through the anguish of denouncing his own son as
the last person to whose hands she should be consigned. He approached
this subject not only with a sense of profound humiliation, but with no
unreasonable fear lest Lady Montfort might at once decline a charge which
would possibly subject her retirement to a harassing invasion. But, to
his surprise as well as relief, no sooner had he named Sophy's parentage
than Lady Montfort evinced emotions of a joy which cast into the shade
all more painful or discreditable associations. "Henceforth, believe
me," she said, "your Sophy shall be my own child, my own treasured
darling!--no humble companion--my equal as well as my charge. Fear not
that any one shall tear her from me. You are right in thinking that my
roof should be her home--that she should have the rearing and the station
which she is entitled as well as fitted to adorn. But you must not part
from her. I have listened to your tale; my experience of you supplies
the defence you suppress--it reverses the judgment which has aspersed
you. And more ardently than before, I press on you a refuge in the Home
that will shelter your grandchild." Noble-hearted woman! and nobler for
her ignorance of the practical world, in the proposal which would have
blistered with scorching blushes the cheek of that Personification of all
"Solemn Plausibilities," the House of Vipont! Gentleman Waife was not
scamp enough to profit by the ignorance which sprang from generous
virtue. But, repressing all argument, and appearing to acquiesce in the
possibility of such an arrangement, he left her benevolent delight
unsaddened--and before the morning he was gone. Gone in stealth, and by
the starlight, as he had gone years ago from the bailiff's cottage-gone,
for Sophy, in waking, to find, as she had found before, farewell lines,
that commended hope and forbade grief. "It was," he wrote, "for both
their sakes that he had set out on a tour of pleasant adventure. He
needed it; he had felt his spirits droop of late in so humdrum and