He who knows all, can only know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man.

Sometimes--weeks had crept on, then--the child, exhausted, though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the fire.

At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came in, and took his turn of reading.

The old man sat and listened--with little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the child--and if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it was a good one, and conceive a fondness for the very book.

When, in their evening talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure to do), the old man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might learn to win a smile from Nell.
But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out of doors, and walking in her solemn garden.