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.