‘Let them go,’ said the child looking up. ‘Let them go, once and for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a thousand pounds.’
‘Well, well,’ returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous answer rose to his lips, ‘she knows no better. I ought to be thankful of it.’
‘But listen to me,’ said the child earnestly, ‘will you listen to me?’
‘Aye, aye, I’ll listen,’ returned the old man, still without looking at her; ‘a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always had when it was her mother’s, poor child.’
‘Let me persuade you, then—oh, do let me persuade you,’ said the child, ‘to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together.’
‘We pursue this aim together,’ retorted her grandfather, still looking away and seeming to confer with himself. ‘Whose image sanctifies the game?’
‘Have we been worse off,’ resumed the child, ‘since you forgot these cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?’
‘She speaks the truth,’ murmured the old man in the same tone as before. ‘It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.’
‘Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon it for the last time,’ said Nell, ‘only remember what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries—what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had—what pleasant times we have known—what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt. And why was this blessed change?’
He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. Once she saw tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.