"And it's all," he said, looking at her sadly, "it's all because I am a lonely old bachelor with no womankind to look after him, no little girl to brighten him when he comes home dog-tired, no one to care whether his socks are in holes and his comb behind the wash-stand, no soft hand to soothe his brow when it aches, no one to work for, no one to love, many a one to close the old bachelor's eyes when he dies, but none to drop a tear for him, no one to--" "Oh! oh! oh! That is just like me.

Oh! oh!" cried Grizel, and he pulled her closer to him, saying, "The more reason we should join thegither; Grizel, if you don't take pity on me, and come and bide with me and be my little housekeeper, the Lord Almighty only knows what is to become of the old doctor." At this she broke away from him, and stood far back pressing her arms to her sides, and she cried, "It is not out of charity you ask me, is it ?" and then she went a little nearer.

"You would not say it if it wasn't true, would you ?" "No, my dawtie, it's true," he told her, and if he had been pitying himself a little, there was an end of that now.
She remembered something and cried joyously, "And you knew what was in my blood before you asked me, so I don't need to tell you, do I?
And you are not afraid that I shall corrupt you, are you?
And you don't think it a pity I didn't die when I was a tiny baby, do you?
Some people think so, I heard them say it." "What would have become of me ?" was all he dared answer in words, but he drew her to him again, and when she asked if it was true, as she had heard some woman say, that in some matters men were all alike, and did what that one man had done to her mamma, he could reply solemnly, "No, it is not true; it's a lie that has done more harm than any war in any century." She sat on his knee, telling him many things that had come recently to her knowledge but were not so new to him.

The fall of woman was the subject, a strange topic for a girl of thirteen and a man of sixty.

They don't become wicked in a moment, he learned; if they are good to begin with, it takes quite a long time to make them bad.