“Yet he leaves you now, Sissy?”

“Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; nobody knows him as I do. When he left me for my good⁠—he never would have left me for his own⁠—I know he was almost brokenhearted with the trial. He will not be happy for a single minute, till he comes back.”

“Tell me more about him,” said Louisa, “I will never ask you again. Where did you live?”

“We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. Father’s a⁠—” Sissy whispered the awful word, “a clown.”

“To make the people laugh?” said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence.