“I especially want to speak to you about my father, Mr. Bold; indeed, I am now here on purpose to do so. Papa is very unhappy, very unhappy indeed, about this affair of the hospital: you would pity him, Mr. Bold, if you could see how wretched it has made him.”

“Oh, Miss Harding!”

“Indeed you would,—any one would pity him: but a friend, an old friend as you are—indeed you would. He is an altered man; his cheerfulness has all gone, and his sweet temper, and his kind happy tone of voice; you would hardly know him if you saw him, Mr. Bold, he is so much altered; and—and—if this goes on, he will die.” Here Eleanor had recourse to her handkerchief, and so also had her auditors; but she plucked up her courage, and went on with her tale. “He will break his heart, and die. I am sure, Mr. Bold, it was not you who wrote those cruel things in the newspaper——”

John Bold eagerly protested that it was not, but his heart smote him as to his intimate alliance with Tom Towers.

“No, I am sure it was not; and papa has not for a moment thought so; you would not be so cruel—but it has nearly killed him. Papa can not bear to think that people should so speak of him, and that everybody should hear him so spoken of:—they have called him avaricious, and dishonest, and they say he is robbing the old men, and taking the money of the hospital for nothing.”

“I have never said so, Miss Harding. I——”

“No,” continued Eleanor, interrupting him, for she was now in the full flood tide of her eloquence; “no, I am sure you have not, but others have said so; and if this goes on, if such things are written again, it will kill papa. Oh! Mr. Bold, if you only knew the state he is in! Now papa does not care much about money.”

Both her auditors, brother and sister, assented to this, and declared on their own knowledge that no man lived less addicted to filthy lucre than the warden.

“Oh! it’s so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too, Mr. Bold. I couldn’t bear that people should think unjustly of papa. Do you know he would give up the hospital altogether, only he cannot. The archdeacon says it would be cowardly, and that he would be deserting his order, and injuring the church. Whatever may happen, papa will not do that: he would leave the place to-morrow willingly, and give up his house, and the income and all if the archdeacon——” Eleanor was going to say “would let him,” but she stopped herself before she had compromised her father’s dignity; and giving a long sigh, she added—“Oh, I do so wish he would.”

“No one who knows Mr. Harding personally, accuses him for a moment,” said Bold.

“It is he that has to bear the punishment; it is he that suffers,” said Eleanor; “and what for? what has he done wrong? how has he deserved this persecution? he that never had an unkind thought in his life, he that never said an unkind word!” and here she broke down, and the violence of her sobs stopped her utterance.

Bold, for the fifth or sixth time, declared that neither he nor any of his friends imputed any blame personally to Mr. Harding.

“Then why should he be persecuted?” ejaculated Eleanor through her tears, forgetting in her eagerness that her intention had been to humble herself as a suppliant before John Bold—“why should he be singled out for scorn and disgrace? why should he be made so wretched? Oh! Mr. Bold,”—and she turned towards him as though the kneeling scene were about to be commenced—“oh! Mr. Bold, why did you begin all this? you whom we all so—so—valued!”