CHAPTER XI.

WAIFE EXACTS FROM GEORGE MORLEY THE FULFILMENT OF ONE OF THOSE
PROMISES WHICH MEAN NOTHING OR EVERYTHING.

The next day George Morley visited Waife's room earlier than usual.
Waife had sent for him. Sophy was seated by her grandfather--his hand in
hers. She had been exerting herself to the utmost to talk cheerfully--to
shake from her aspect every cloud of sorrow. But still THAT CHANGE was
there--more marked than even on the previous day. A few hours of intense
struggle, a single night wholly without sleep, will tell on the face of
early youth. Not till we, hard veterans, have gone through such
struggles as life permits not to the slight responsibilities of new
recruits--not till sleepless nights have grown to us familiar will
Thought seem to take, as it were, strength, not exhaustion, from
unrelaxing exercise--nourish the brain, sustain the form by its own
untiring, fleshless, spiritual immortality; not till many a winter has
stripped the leaves; not till deep, and far out of sight, spread the
roots that support the stem--will the beat of the east wind leave no sign
on the rind.

George has not, indeed, so noticed, the day before, the kind of withering
blight that has passed over the girl's countenance; but he did now--when
she met his eye more steadfastly, and had resumed something of the open
genial infantine grace of manner which constituted her peculiar charm,
and which it was difficult to associate with deeper griefs than those of