"You may have some of these things, Liz, if you like." His serious manner made her more serious and attentive. "Such a house as you saw just now you may have, perhaps. It depends upon you whether I accept the offer that has been made to me to-night." "Upon me!" she exclaimed. "Do you remember what I was when you first came here?" "Why, the same as you are now," she replied, with a laughing evasion of what he was referring to. "No, my dear," he said humbly, taking her hand in his; "I was a lonely miserable man. There was no light in my life. I used to come home night after night, and drink." She placed her fingers on his lips, to stop the farther confession; but he gently removed them. "I had nothing else to do. Bad fancies used to come, and I drank to drive them away; and the more I drank, the worse they became. I don't know what might have been the end of me. This room used to be full of terrible shadows creeping over the walls. I saw them in the dark, stealing upon me. One night, when these fancies were upon me, driving me almost mad--how long ago was it, Lizzie?--I heard a little voice singing in the next room. I didn't know any one had moved in until I heard your voice, and I crept into the passage and listened to you, my dear, and blessed you--ay, I did Lizzie! and I fell asleep with your singing in my ears." "And I came out," she said, humouring him, "and saw you." "And saw me, and pitied me," he continued. "I wonder you were not afraid. You came into my room, and saw the bottle on the table; there was liquor in it, and you asked me if you might take it away, and I said Yes. Then you tidied up the room, and made the bed, and I sat wondering at your goodness, and wondering why the shadows didn't come while you were with me. That was the commencement of it, Lizzie; and so we became friends, and my life was not so desolate as it used to. You brightened it for me, by dear." "No, it wasn't me, daddy; it was yourself--it was leaving off that----that----" "Drink," he added, as he hesitated. "It was driving me mad!" "And you have left it off, daddy, and that's the reason why you are better and happier." "Yes, Lizzie," he said, with a guilty look at her, for the flat bottle, half filled with gin, was in his pocket as he spoke. "I have kept my promise." "So it's not me, after all," she exclaimed merrily, "that you have to thank." "It is you, Lizzie. If it were not for you, I should go back to my old ways again; it is only you who keep me from them. I know now what it is to have some one to care for me; if I had known it before--O, if I had known it before! If when we were young, we could see what was before us!" "Have you never had any one care for you, daddy?" she asked pityingly.