Still, he had not got over his first dread that she might one day be traced, claimed, and taken away from him, if that narrative, meagre as it was, should ever be trusted to other ears than those which had originally listened to it.

Still, he kept the hair bracelet and the handkerchief that had belonged to her mother carefully locked up out of sight in his bureau; and still, he doubted Mrs.Peckover's discretion in the government of her tongue, as he had doubted it in the bygone days when the little girl was first established in his own home.
After making a pretense of showing her the drawings begun that evening, Mr.Blyth artfully contrived to lead Mrs.Peckover past them into a recess at the extreme end of the room.
"Well," he said, speaking in an unnecessarily soft whisper, considering the distance which now separated him from Zack.

"Well, I suppose you're quite sure of not having let out anything by chance, since I last saw you, about how you first met with our darling girl?
or about her poor mother?
or-- ?" "What, you're at it again, sir," interrupted Mrs.Peckover loftily, but dropping her voice in imitation of Mr.Blyth,--"a clever man, too, like you! Dear, dear me! how often must I keep on telling you that I'm old enough to be able to hold my tongue?
How much longer are you going to worrit yourself about hiding what nobody's seeking after ?" "I'm afraid I shall always worry myself about it," replied Valentine seriously.

"Whenever I see you, my good friend, I fancy I hear all that melancholy story over again about our darling child, and that poor lost forsaken mother of hers, whose name even we don't know.

I feel, too, when you come and see us, almost more than at other times, how inexpressibly precious the daughter whom you have given to us is to Lavvie and me; and I think with more dread than I well know how to describe, of the horrible chance, if anything was incautiously said, and carried from mouth to mouth--about where you met with her mother, for instance, or what time of the year it was, and so forth--that it might lead, nobody knows how, to some claim being laid to her, by somebody who might be able to prove the right to make it." "Lord, sir! after all these years, what earthly need have you to be anxious about such things as that ?" "I'm never anxious long, Mrs.Peckover.My good spirits always get the better of every anxiety, great and small.