A shade of anxiety crossed the blind man's features as he heard the words, and he turned his dim eyes toward Guly as if he would give worlds to read the expression of face with which the sentence had been spoken.
"Lately," said he, leaning forward more heavily on his staff, "I have such thoughts myself. I am a weak, powerless old man, already bending over the grave into
which I must so soon drop. When I think of this poor, dear child, left unprotected and alone in this great city, I am very unhappy, very miserable."
Guly saw a tear sparkle, and trickle down through the wrinkles of that aged face, and his own heart yearned sorrowfully.
"Blanche will never be without friends," said Wilkins, encouragingly. "At least she will never lack for one while I live."
"Or I," exclaimed Guly, earnestly.
The old man shook his head, and smiled sadly.
"Two young men, however worthy and noble they may be, are not exactly the ones to offer their protection to an orphaned and beautiful girl. Such things I don't doubt may be done uprightly and honestly; but the world, the suspicious world, is ever ready to cast the blight of shame and slander on such things."
Blanche suddenly left her grandfather's chair and hurried away to a distant corner of the room, from whence she brought a little stand containing a work-basket and the lamp. She placed it just in front of her grandpapa's chair, and between Guly and Wilkins. With a smile she seated herself at it, and began to embroider a strip of insertion; nimbly plying her needle among the slender vines and tendrils she was working.
"Are you there, darling?" said the old man, stretching out his unsteady hand and laying it on her head.