dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his
own stout heart.

At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
looking at him through the tears that still flowed.

"You have no one to care for you? Don't say so! Come and live with us,
brother; we'll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers--never!
Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!"

"And they call her an idiot!" mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile
on his lips.

"My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one--whom even Nature has
fooled and betrayed! Sister!--we, both orphans! Sister!" exclaimed
that dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he
opened his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw
herself on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was,
indeed, pure and holy as a brother's: and Fanny felt that he had left
upon her cheek a tear that was not her own.

"Well," he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man's hand,
"what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little
money; I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away--in London
or else where--and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and
she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should
not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear
to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--"

He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, "And you have placed