pious, godly woman, who, upon such pecuniary considerations as Braddell,
by robbing his creditors, could afford to bestow, would permanently offer
to the poor infant a mother's home and a mother's care. When this woman
was found, Braddell confided his child to Ardworth, with such a sum as he
could scrape together for its future maintenance. And to Ardworth,
rather than to his fellow-sectarian, this double trust was given, because
the latter feared scandal and misrepresentation if he should be
ostensibly mixed up in so equivocal a charge. Poor and embarrassed as
Walter Ardworth was, Braddell did not for once misinterpret character
when he placed the money in his hands; and this because the characters we
have known in transparent boyhood we have known forever. Ardworth was
reckless, and his whole life had been wrecked, his whole nature
materially degraded, by the want of common thrift and prudence. His own
money slipped through his fingers and left him surrounded by creditors,
whom, rigidly speaking, he thus defrauded; but direct dishonesty was as
wholly out of the chapter of his vices as if he had been a man of the
strictest principles and the steadiest honour.

The child was gone, the father died, Lucretia returned, as we have seen
in Grabman's letter, to the house of death, to meet suspicion, and cold
looks, and menial accusations, and an inquest on the dead; but through
all this the reft tigress mourned her stolen whelp. As soon as all
evidence against her was proved legally groundless, and she had leave to
depart, she searched blindly and frantically for her lost child; but in
vain. The utter and penniless destitution in which she was left by her
husband's decease did not suffice to terminate her maddening chase. On
foot she wandered from village to village, and begged her way wherever a
false clew misled her steps.

At last, in reluctant despair, she resigned the pursuit, and found