"So much for you and me, Sally. There's another of more consequence than both of us--our Duchess. When I first set my eyes on her, I thought I'd never in all my life seen so beautiful a picture. We had plenty of happy days then; and we must never forget how much we owe her. We should have been a dull couple, you and me, without her. She was like light in our dark little room, and when I had troublesome thoughts about me, the sight of her was like the sun breaking through dark clouds. Do you remember, Sally, when she was ill, and you watched over her day and night?"
"You too, Daddy."
"I could do nothing; I had the bread to earn. Dr. Lyon said your nursing, not his medicine, pulled her through; and he was right. Do you remember our holiday in the country--the rides in the wagon, and the rambles by the sea-shore? What pleasure and happiness we enjoyed, Sally, was all through her. I can hardly think of her as anything but a child; but, as I've said, Nature has set her lines; and our Duchess is a woman--the brightest and most beautiful the world contains; and whether that beauty and brightness is going to be a curse or a blessing to her, time alone can tell."
"Not a curse, Daddy!" cried Sally, dropping her face in her hands. "No, no; not a curse!"
"God knows," said Seth, with his hand resting lightly on Sally's shoulder. "If you or me could do anything to make it a blessing we'd do it, if it brought upon us the hardest sacrifice that ever fell upon human beings. I say that of myself, and I know it of you. But I'm a man, with a wider experience than yours, and I can see further. Feeling is one thing, fact is another. To put feeling aside when we talk of our Duchess is out of the question; but let us see how far fact goes, and what it will lead us to." He looked down upon his garments with a curious smile; they were old and patched and patched again. Sally, with apprehension in her glance, followed his observance of himself. Then, with an expression of pity and reverence, he turned to Sally, and touched her frock, which was worn and faded. "Your only frock, Sally," he said.
"What of that?" she exclaimed, with a rebellious ring in her voice. "It's good enough for me."
"We've got to see this through," he returned, taking her hand in his, and patting it so gently that her head drooped before him. "You wouldn't fetch much at Rag Fair, my girl. All that belongs to you, on and off, would fetch, perhaps--three farthings. Now let us look at something else."
"Daddy, Daddy!" she cried, as she walked to the dark end of the cellar; "what are you going to do?"
He replied by dragging forward a trunk, which he placed between Sally and himself. It was locked, and he could not raise the lid. Taking from his pocket a large bunch of keys, he tried them until he found one that fitted the lock.
"I borrowed these keys of the locksmith round the corner," said Seth, as he opened the trunk; "I told him what sort of a trunk it was, and he said I'd be sure to find a key in this lot to fit it."