father and mother lying crushed under the fallen dome of that fearful
church, was it strange he should seem to belong to her?

But there might be some one somewhere in the world with a better
claim; possibly--horrible thought!--with more need of him than she! Up
started a hideous cupidity, a fierce temptation to dishonesty, such as
she had never imagined. We do not know what is in us until the
temptation comes. Then there is the devil to fight. And Mrs. Porson
fought him.

Mr. Porson was, in a milder degree, affected much as his wife. He
could not help wishing, nor was he wrong in wishing, that, since the
child's father and mother were gone, they might take their place, and
love their orphan. They were far from rich, but what was one child!
They might surely manage to give him a good education, and set him
doing for himself! But, alas, there might be others--others with
love-property in the child! The same thoughts were working in each,
but neither dared utter them in the presence of the sleeping treasure.

As they descended the last slope above the town, with the wide
sea-horizon before them, they beheld such a glory of after-sunset as,
even on that coast, was unusual. A chord of colour that might have
been the prostrate fragment of a gigantic rainbow, lay along a large
arc of the horizon. The farther portion of the sea was an indigo blue,
save for a grayish line that parted it from the dusky red of the
sky. This red faded up through orange and dingy yellow to a pale green
and pale blue, above which came the depth of the blue night, in which
rayed resplendent the evening star. Below the star and nearer to the
west, lay, very thin and very long, the sickle of the new moon. If
death be what it looks to the unthinking soul, and if the heavens