"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 flowers over that grave?" "Stay with us," said the blind man; "not for our sake, but your own. The world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer you are;--and you have a little money, you say!" "I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we shall meet again." "Must you go?" said Fanny, tenderly. "But you will come again; you know I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!" At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed a posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy of Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his air-- and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The soldier-moustache--thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the martial countenance.