Sophy picked up the fallen letters, placed them on Lionel’s lap, and looked into his face wistfully. He smiled, resumed his mother’s epistle, and read the concluding passages, which he had before omitted. Their sudden turn from reproof to tenderness melted him. He began to feel that his mother had a right to blame him for an act of concealment. Still she never would have consented to his writing such a letter; and had that letter been attended with so ill a result? Again he read Mr. Darrell’s blunt but not offensive lines. His pride was soothed: why should he not now love his father’s friend? He rose briskly, paid for the fruit, and went his way back to the boat with Sophy. As his oars cut the wave he talked gayly, but he ceased to interrogate Sophy on her past. Energetic, sanguine, ambitious, his own future entered now into his thoughts. Still, when the sun sank as the inn came partially into view from the winding of the banks and the fringe of the willows, his mind again settled on the patient, quiet little girl, who had not ventured to ask him one question in return for all he had put so unceremoniously to her. Indeed, she was silently musing over words he had inconsiderately let fall,--“What I hate to think you had ever stooped to perform.” Little could Lionel guess the unquiet thoughts which those words might hereafter call forth from the brooding deepening meditations of lonely childhood! At length said the boy abruptly, as he had said once before, “I wish, Sophy, you were my sister.” He added in a saddened tone, “I never had a sister: I have so longed for one! However, surely we shall meet again. You go to-morrow so must I.” Sophy’s tears flowed softly, noiselessly. “Cheer up, lady-bird, I wish you liked me half as much as I like you!” “I do like you: oh, so much!” cried Soppy, passionately. “Well, then, you can write, you say?” “A little.” “You shall write to me now and then, and I to you. I’ll talk to your grandfather about it. Ah, there he is, surely!” The boat now ran into the shelving creek, and by the honeysuckle arbour stood Gentleman Waife, leaning on his stick. “You are late,” said the actor, as they landed, and Sophy sprang into his arms. “I began to be uneasy, and came here to inquire after you. You have not caught cold, child?” SOPHY.--“Oh, no.” LIONEL.--“She is the best of children. Pray, come into the inn, Mr. Waife; no toddy, but some refreshment.” WAIFE.--“I thank you,--no, sir; I wish to get home at once. I walk slowly; it will be dark soon.” Lionel tried in vain to detain him. There was a certain change in Mr. Waife’s manner to him: it was much more distant; it was even pettish, if not surly. Lionel could not account for it; thought it mere whim at first: but as he walked part of the way back with them towards the village, this asperity continued, nay increased. Lionel was hurt; he arrested his steps.