their vast renown and immense popularity, and they should find a place
in every house and in every library.




CHAPTER I.

THE FATHER'S RETURN.


She kneels beside the pauper bed,
As seraphs bow while they adore!
Advance with still and reverent tread,
For angels have gone in before!

"I wonder, oh, I wonder if he will come?"

The voice which uttered these words was so anxious, so pathetic with
deep feeling, that you would have loved the poor child, whose heart
gave them forth, plain and miserable as she was. Yet a more helpless
creature, or a more desolate home could not well be imagined. She
was very small, even for her age. Her little sharp features had no
freshness in them; her lips were thin; her eyes not only heavy, but
full of dull anguish, which gave you an idea of settled pain, both
of soul and body, for no mere physical suffering ever gave that depth
of expression to the eyes of a child.

But all was of a piece, the garret, and the child that inhabited it.
The attic, which was more especially her home, was crowded under the