"Halloo! what's that?" cried the bailiff, attempting to raise the bed-curtain. "Don't," said Jones, in a husky voice. Then the man saw what it was, and he exclaimed quite ruefully: "I am very sorry--I am very sorry." "You can't help it," meekly said Jones, "you must do your duty." "Why that's what I always say," cried the bailiff with a second oath, rather bigger than the first, "a man must do his duty, mustn't he?" and a third oath slipped out. "Don't swear, pray don't!" said Jones. "And if I do, may I be--" here the swearing bailiff paused aghast at what he was going to add. "I can't help myself like," he said, rather ruefully, "it's second natur, you see, second natur. But I'll try and not do it--I'll try." And speaking quite softly, spite of his swearing propensities, he looked wistfully at Jones; but the childless father's face remained a blank. "Make yourself at home," he said in a subdued voice. "I think you'll find all you want in that cupboard, at least 'tis all I have." And he resumed his place by the dead. "All I want, and all you have," muttered the bailiff with his head in the cupboard. "Then faith, my poor fellow, 'tain't much." The day was chill and very dreary; the bailiff smoked his pipe by the low smouldering fire, and yawned over a dirty old newspaper. Two hours had passed thus when Jones said to him: "You don't want for anything, do you?" "Why no," musingly replied the bailiff, taking out his pipe, and looking up from his paper, "thank you, I can't say I want for anything, but what have you to say to a glass of grog, eh?" He rather brightened himself at the idea. "I'll send for anything you like," drearily replied Jones, and it was plain he had not understood as relating to himself the kindly meant proposal. The bailiff rather stiffly said, he wanted nothing. "Well then," resumed Jones, slipping off his shoes, "I'll leave you for awhile." "Why, where are you going?" cried the other staring. "There," said Jones, and raising the curtain, he crept in to his dead darling. The curtain shrouded him in; he was alone--alone with his child and his grief. A little child he had cradled her in his arms; many a time had she slept in that fond embrace, to her both a protection and a caress. And now! He looked at the little pale face that had fallen asleep in prayer; he saw it lying on its pillow in death-like stillness; and if he repressed the groan that rose to his lips the deeper was his anguish.