“Does she not tire you, lying on your shoulder? I could take her a little, papa,” she said. She could think of no other way of showing her sympathy. He shook his head and pressed the child closer to him. Was it that the touch of her innocence made him feel less guilty? Was it that to convince himself of the strength of the natural affection in him made him think himself a better man? or was it only the one real and true sentiment which may still preserve the least worthy from perdition? Helen looked somewhat wistfully at her little sister, lying in all the _abandon_ of childish sleep, helpless yet omnipotent, across her father’s breast. She had never been a favourite like little Janey. No passion of parental affection had ever been lavished upon her, and, in consequence, she knew her father better, and perhaps secretly trusted him less, than children ought to do--though she had never said this even to herself. But for the moment, she sitting alone opposite to them, carried off from all her anchors, swept into some wild sea of the unknown, looked at them wistfully, and envied the father and the child. In a few hours more Helen understood much more perfectly what the metaphor meant which we have just employed. At midnight they embarked in a steamer which, after feeling its way down the river through a thousand dangers, plunged into the Channel just as daybreak made the rough waves and flying foam visible. It was a small, old, almost worn-out boat, and the voyage was one of the longer and cheaper ones which tempt the passengers from the ordinary routes, to their profound suffering and repentance. Helen had never been at sea before. She lay trembling while the vessel creaked and plunged, not knowing what to reply to Janey’s inquiry why the ship went up and down. Why, indeed? It seemed to do so on purpose, tossing them up one moment and down the other with that sickening repetition which helps to make up the agony of a voyage to the inexperienced. In the morning, in the perplexing and painful daylight of which Helen felt afraid, she did not know why, they landed on foreign soil. Her father had changed during the night, she could not tell how. Was it possible that already on the previous evening he had worn the large whiskers and carefully smoothed hair which seemed to have grown lighter, redder, than it used to be? She scarcely knew him when he came on deck, and he gave her an uneasy look when he met her eye. She did not, however, suspect the truth as yet, nor did she in the least understand his disguise. She was only full of alarm and wonder, not knowing what to think. CHAPTER III.