Nor, strange as his suddenly-acquired affection for Nelly might seem to others, could it come to her as a surprise. The mother’s vanity would easily account for the pleasure her little daughter gave to the lonely man. Once, when Mrs. Parrot, meeting her in the road, said that “It did seem strange that a man an’ a child, as had niver set eyes on each other before, should love each other in the way Mr. Hampden and Miss Nelly did:” Dolly answered, “Yes; but though I am her mother, yet I must say that Nelly is a pretty and very winning child, and there is nothing uncommon in strangers taking a fancy to children.” No; that was quite true, Mrs. Parrot answered; and told a story of a rich lady admiring a little beggar girl in the street; and how the rich lady took the wench into her carrich, and got the parients’ leaf to adopt her; and how the beggar girl came into the rich lady’s fortin, and grew up into a stately an’ ’aughty woman, an’ married a lord, she did, as was beknown to many. “It ’ud be a comfortin’ thing to you, ma’am, don’t you think, if Mr. Hampden was to adopt your little gal. It ’ud be a relief to your feelings, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Parrot said. If some half-formed thought, bearing a resemblance to Mrs. Parrot’s view, had flitted across Dolly’s mind, let us not marvel. Never was her mood sadder, never was her secret grief sharper, than when her child’s future formed the subject of her thoughts. Who would give Nelly a home if she died? Who would love the little thing; rear her in the knowledge of God, of her broken-hearted mother, of her poor drowned father? “I could not part with her, Mrs. Parrot; she is the only link that binds me to bygone happy days. I could not spare her. My life would be _too_ lonely for me to support it. But I often pray to God that she may find a friend--such a friend as I am sure Mr. Hampden would make her--when I am dead.” This hope--that Mr. Hampden _would_ prove that friend--was the real source of the comfort that filled her heart each time she saw her little girl trip across to Mrs. Parrot’s house. She seldom saw Holdsworth. Sometimes she thought he avoided her. Twice, when she was leaving or returning to her house, she saw him in the porch, and each time he hastily withdrew, when she would have crossed over to speak to him. On rare occasions she met him coming from the town. Once he raised his hat and passed on: once she went up to him to thank him for his kindness to Nelly. He answered her hurriedly, speaking with an effort, and terminated the interview almost abruptly by bowing and leaving her. Then, again, his voice affected her powerfully. She stopped and looked after him; and went on her way, brooding, with a little frown of anxious, painful thought.