He kissed her many times with 'Bless you, my love. Good night, MY dear!'

But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of

him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament

and despair again. 'Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back

presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.' He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary? 'Yes, father.' 'Then come back by all means, my love.'

'I shall be very quiet, father.' 'Don't think of me, my dear,' he said, giving her his kind permission

fully. 'Come back by all means.'

He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire

together very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard her,

and called out who was that? 'Only Amy, father.' 'Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.' He raised

himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to bring her

face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both the private father

and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him then. 'My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no

recreations, many cares I am afraid?' 'Don't think of that, dear. I never do.'

'You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for you; but

all I have been able to do, I have done.'

'Yes, my dear father,' she rejoined, kissing him. 'I know, I know.'

'I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,' he said, with a catch

in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of

self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness. 'It is

all I could do for my children--I have done it. Amy, my love, you are

by far the best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my

mind--whatever I have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done

freely and without murmuring.'

Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can

surely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this

man had been, can impose upon himself. Enough, for the present place,

that he lay down with wet eyelashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after

bestowing his life of degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted

child upon whom its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone

had saved him to be even what he was.




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