This ignoring of the child’s presence in the room seemed even to himself strained and unnatural; and yet he had no business to be there at all, and the Squire knew that it would never do to encourage such a breach of discipline. Suddenly he was aware that a small soft hand was laid upon his own, and a sweet little voice said, in accents of eager, tremulous surprise,— “Grandpapa!” The Squire turned quickly in his chair to meet the pleading, earnest gaze of those liquid brown eyes fixed upon him with an almost pathetic intensity. “Grandpapa!” said the child again, but this time with more of distressed uncertainty in his tone, and the delicate little lips began to quiver as the boy glanced up into the unresponsive face before him. “Why do you call me that, little boy?” asked the Squire, gravely. The child’s hand was pressed to his forehead, his eyes brightened unnaturally. “I don’t know,” he answered, slowly, and a tear gathered upon the long lashes. After all, the Squire was a father, and, although that very fact made the sight of the boy painful to him, he was not on that account hard-hearted, nor could he look with an unmoved countenance upon the distress of a little child. He drew the little fellow gently between his knees, and it seemed as if there was something in the fatherly touch that went home to the heart of the lonely child in some overpowering way, for he suddenly laid his head against the Squire’s shoulder and burst into convulsive weeping. There was something very touching in the nameless sorrow of the little lonely child, who was so utterly forsaken in the great world, without home or kindred or even a name to call his own. His partial realization of his anomalous position gave a pathos to his distress that raised it above the level of ordinary childish grief. The Squire could have found it in his heart to wish that he had not been the recipient of this burst of sorrow, but he could not for a moment refuse to comfort the child, who clung to him as to a natural protector. He put his arm round the sobbing boy, and by and by said, in kindly accents,— “There, there, my little man, there, there! Do not cry so bitterly. What is it all about? Let us see if something can’t be done to make it better.” The tone rather than the words seemed to soothe the agitated boy; his sobs were slowly checked, and, although he did not lift his head from its resting-place upon the broad shoulder, the little frame ceased to tremble so convulsively and gradually became still. When the child’s tears seemed fairly conquered, the Squire put him a little farther away and looked at him steadily, with an intent expression upon his fine, commanding face. The little boy looked up timidly, but he did not seem alarmed by the glance he encountered. Children have a marvellous instinct in distinguishing between the sternness of an inflexible yet just and kindly nature and that of harshness and tyranny.