child: the one was so well grown, so advanced; the other so backward, so
nipped in the sickly bud.

* See "Ernest Maltravers," book v., p. 221.

"You can repay me for all, for more than I have done; more than I ever
can do for you and yours," said Templeton, "by taking this young stranger
also under your care. It is the child of one dear, most dear to me; an
orphan; I know not with whom else to place it. Let it for the present be
supposed your own,--the elder child."

Alice could refuse nothing to her benefactor; but her heart did not open
at first to the beautiful girl, whose sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks
mocked the languid looks and faded hues of her own darling. But the
sufferer seemed to hail a playmate; it smiled, it put forth its poor,
thin hands; it uttered its inarticulate cry of pleasure, and Alice burst
into tears, and clasped them _both_ to her heart.

Mr. Templeton took care not to rest under the same roof with her he now
seriously intended to make his wife; but he followed Alice to the
seaside, and visited her daily. Her infant rallied; it was tenacious of
the upper air; it clung to life so fondly; poor child, it could not
foresee what a bitter thing to some of us life is! And now it was that
Templeton, learning from Alice her adventure with her absent lover,
learning that all hope in that quarter was gone, seized the occasion, and
pressed his suit. Alice at the hour was overflowing with gratitude; in
her child's reviving looks she read all her obligations to her
benefactor. But still, at the word _love_, at the name of _marriage_,
her heart recoiled; and the lost, the faithless, came back to his fatal
throne. In choked and broken accents, she startled the banker with the