Timothy  had  scarcely  noticed  the  unfortunate  child
that  his  wife  had  borne,  after  arranging  for  a  meagre
fulfilment  of  his  promise  to  her  to  take  care  of  the  boy,
by  having  him  brought  up  in  his  house.  Occasionally,
remembering  this  promise,  he  went  and  glanced  at  the
child,  saw  that  he  was  doing  well,  gave  a  few  special
directions,  and  again  went  his  solitary  way.  Thus  he
and  the  child  lived  on  in  the  Stapleford  mansion-house
till  two  or  three  years  had  passed  by.  One  day  he  was
walking  in  the  garden,  and  by  some  accident  left  his
snuff-box  on  a  bench.  When  he  came  back  to  find  it
he  saw  the  little  boy  standing  there ;  he  had  escaped  his
nurse,  and  was  making  a  plaything  of  the  box,  in  spite
of  the  convulsive  sneezings  which  the  game  brought  in  its
train.  Then  the  man  with  the  encrusted  heart  became
interested  in  the  little  fellow's  persistence  in  his  play
under  such  discomforts  ;  he  looked  in  the  child's  face,  saw
there  his  wife's  countenance,  though  he  did  not  see  his
own,  and  fell  into  thought  on  the  piteousness  of  child-
hood— particularly  of  despised  and  rejected  childhood,
like  this  before  him.
From  that  hour,  try  as  he  would  to  counteract  the
feeling,  the  human  necessity  to  love  something  or  other
got  the  better  of  what  he  had  called  his  wisdom,  and
shaped  itself  in  a  tender  anxiety  for  the  youngster  Rupert.
