She is central in this story just as little Aglaïa is central in Tennyson's "Princess," or Eppie in George Eliot's "Silas Marner," or the baby offspring of Cherokee Sal in "The Luck of Roaring Camp."

"It's my duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her.

The child was christened Hephzibah, after Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.

" The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey Cass.

As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the weaver's care.