"It is a long lane that has no turning, Charles. And I don't think patience and perseverance often go unrewarded in the long run. How did you fare to-day ?"

"Just as usual. Never got a single chance at all. Look here, Edina-my boots are beginning to wear out."

A rather ominous pause. Charley was stretching out his right foot. "You have another pair, you know, Charley. These must be mended."

"But I am thinking of the time when neither pair will mend any longer. Edina, I wonder whether life is worth living for?"

"Charley, we cannot see into the future," spoke Edina, pausing for a moment in her work to look at him, a freshly-begun net in her hand. "If we could, we might foresee, even now, how very good and necessary this discipline is for us. It may be, Charley, that you needed it. Take it as a cross that has come direct from God; bear it as well as you are able; do your best in it and trust to Him. Rely upon it that, in His own good time, He will lighten it for you. And He will take care of you until it is lightened."

Charles took up the poker; recollected himself, and put it down again. Fires might not be lavishly stirred now, as they had been at Eagles' Nest. Mrs. Raynor had been obliged to make a rule that no one should touch the fire save herself and Edina.

"It is not for myself I am thus impatient to get a place," resumed Charles. "But for the rest of them, I would go to-morrow and enlist. If I could earn only twenty pounds a year to begin with, it would be a help; better than nothing."

Some two or three months back he had said, If I can only get a hundred a year. What lessons of humility does adversity teach!

"Twenty pounds a year would pay the rent," observed Edina. "I never thought it was so hard to get into something. I supposed that when young men wanted employment they had but to seek it. It does seem wrong, does it not, Charley, that an able and willing young fellow should not be able to work when he wishes?"

"My enlisting would relieve you of myself: and the thought, that it would, is often in my mind," observed Charles. "On the other hand

"On the other hand, you had better not think of it," she interposed firmly. "We should not like to see you in the ranks, Charley. A common soldier is

"Hush, Edina! Here comes mother."

But luck was dawning for Charley. Only a small slice of luck, it is true; and what, not so very long ago, he would have scorned and scoffed at. Estimating things by his present hopeless condition, it looked fair enough.

One bleak morning, a day or two after the above conversation,

Charles was slowly pacing Fleet Street, wondering where he could go next, what do. A situation, advertised in that morning's paper in flaming colours, had brought him up, post haste. As usual, it turned out a failure to be successful, the applicant must put down fifty pounds in cash. So, that chance was gone: and there was Charles, uncertain, hungry, miserable.

"Halloa, Raynor! Is it you?"

A young stripling about his own age had run against him. At the first moment Charles did not know him, but recollection flashed on his mind. It was Peter Tanting: a lad who had been a schoolfellow of his in Somersetshire.

"I am going to get my dinner," said Tanting, after a few sentences had passed. "Will you come and take some with me?"

Too thankful for the offer, Charles followed him into the Rainbow. And over the viands they grew confidential. Tanting was in a large printing and publishing establishment close by; his brother Fred was at a solicitor's, nearly out of his articles.

"Fred's ill," observed Peter. "He thinks it must be the fogs of this precious London that affect him; and I think so too. Anyway, he coughs frightfully and has had to give up for a day or two. I went to his office this morning to say he was in bed with a plaster on his chest, and a fine way they were in at hearing it; wanting him to go whether or not. One of their copying clerks has left; and they can't hear of another all in a hurry."

"I wonder whether I should suit them?" spoke Charles on the spur of the moment, a flush rising to his face and a light to his eyes.

"You!" cried Peter Tanting.

And then Charles, encouraged perhaps by the good cheer, told a little of his history to Tanting, and why he must get a situation of some sort that would bring in its returns. Tanting, an open-hearted, country-bred lad, became all eagerness to help him, and offered to introduce him to the solicitors' firm there and then.

"It is near the Temple; almost close by," said he: "Prestleigh and Preen. A good firm: one of the best in London. Let us go at once." Charles accompanied him to the place. Had he been aware that this same legal firm counted Mr. George Atkinson among its clients, he might have declined to try to enter it. It used to be Callard and Prestleigh. But old Mr. Callard had died very soon after Frank held the interview with him that was told of: now it was Prestleigh and Preen.

Peter Tanting introduced Charles to the managing clerk, Mr. Stroud. Mr. Stroud, a very tall man wearing silver-rimmed spectacles, with iron grey hair and a crabbed sort of manner, put some questions to Charles, and then told him to sit down and wait. Mr. Prestleigh was in his private room; but it would not do to trouble him with these matters:

Mr. Preen was out. Peter Tanting, in his good nature, said all he could in favour of Charles, particularly that "he would be sure to do," and then went away.

Charles sat down on one of the chairs, and passed an hour gazing at the fire and listening to the scratching of pens going on at the desks. People were perpetually passing in and out: the green baize door seemed to be ever on the swing. Some brought messages; some were marshalled to Mr. Prestleigh's room. By-and-by, a youngish gentieman-thirty-five, perhaps came in, in a warm white over-coat; and, from the attention and seriousness suddenly evinced by the clerks generally, Charles rightly guessed him to be Mr. Preen. He passed through the room without speaking, and was followed by the head clerk.

A few minutes more, and Charles was sent for to Mr. Preen's room. That gentleman-who had a great profusion of light curling hair and a pleasant face and manner-was alone, and standing with his back to the fire near his table. He asked Charles very much the same questions that Mr. Stroud had asked, and particularly what his recent occupation had been. Charles told the truth: that he had not been brought up to any occupation, but that an unfortunate reverse of family circumstances was obliging him to seek one.

"You have not been in a solicitor's office, then! Not been accustomed to the copying of deeds?" cried Mr. Preen.

Charles confessed he had not. But he took the courage to say he had no doubt he could do any copying requred of him, and to beg that he might be tried.

"Is your handwriting a neat one ?"

"Yes, it is," said Charles eagerly, for he was speaking only truth. "Neat and good, and very plain."

"You think you could copy quickly and correctly?"

"I am sure I could, sir. I hope you will try me," he added, a curious wail of entreaty in his tone, that perhaps he was himself unconscious of; but which was nevertheless apparent to Mr. Preen. "I have been seeking after something so long, day after day, week after week, that I have nearly lost heart."

Perhaps that last avowal was not the best aid to Charles's success; or would not have been with most men of business. With Mr. Preen, who was very good-natured, it told rather for than against him. The lawyer mused. They wanted a copying clerk very badly indeed; being two hands short and extremely busy: but the question was, could this young man accomplish the work? A thought struck him. "Suppose you were to stay now and copy a page this afternoon?" suggested Mr. Preen. "You see, if you cannot do the writing, it would be useless your attempting it but if you can, we will engage you."

:

"I shall only be too happy to stay this afternoon, sir."

"Very well," said Mr. Preen, ringing his bell for the managing clerk. "And you shall then have an answer."

Charles was put to work by Mr. Stroud: who came and looked at him three or four times while he was doing the copying. He wrote slowly; the consequence of his super-extra care, his intensely earnest wish to succeed: but his writing was good and clear.

"I shall write quickly in a day or two, when I am used to it,” he said, looking up: and there was hope in his face as well as his tone. Mr. Preen chanced to be standing by. The writing would do, he decided; and Mr. Stroud was told to engage him. To begin with, his salary was to be fifteen shillings a week: in a short while—as soon, indeed, as his suiting them was an assured fact-it would be raised to eighteen. He was to enter on the morrow.

"Where do you live?" curtly questioned Mr. Stroud.

"Just beyond Kennington."

"Take care that you are punctual to time. Nine o'clock is the hour for the copying clerks. You are expected to be at work by that time, therefore you must get here before the clock strikes."

A very easy condition, as it seemed to Charles Raynor, in his elation of spirit. A copying clerk in a lawyer's office at fifteen or eighteen shillings a week! Had anyone told him a year back he would be capable of accepting so degrading a post-as he would then have deemed it—he had surely said the world must have turned itself upside down first. Now he went home with a joyous step and elated heart, hardly knowing whether he trod on his head or his heels.

And there, at Laurel Cottage, they held quite a jubilee. Fifteen shillings a week, added to the previous narrow income of twenty, seemed at the moment to look very like riches. Charles had formed all kinds of mental resolutions as he walked home: to treat his clothes tenderly lest they should get shabby; scarcely to tread on his boots that they might not wear out: and to make his daily dinner on bread and cheese, carried in his pocket from home. Ah, these resolves are good, and more than good; and generous, wholesome-hearted young fellows are proud to make them in the time of need. But in their inexperience they cannot foresee the long, wearing, depressing struggle that the years must entail, during which the efforts and the privation must be persevered in. And it is well they cannot.

It wanted a quarter to nine in the morning, when Charles entered the office, warm with the speed at which he had walked. He did all that he was put to do, and did it correctly. If Mr. Stroud did not praise, he did not grumble.

When told at one o'clock that he might go to dinner, Charles made his way to the more sheltered parts in the precincts of the Temple, and surreptitiously eat the bread and cheese that he had brought

in his pocket from home. That was eaten long and long before the time had expired when he would be expected to go in; but he did not like to appear earlier, lest some discerning clerk should decide he had not been to dinner at all. It was frightfully dull and dreary here, the bitterly cold wind whistling against him down the passages and round the corners; so he got into the open streets: they, at least, were lively with busy traversers.

"I must go and see Peter Tanting, to tell him of my success and thank him; for it is to him I owe it," thought Charles, as he quitted the office in the evening. "Let me see! The address was somewhere near Mecklenburgh Square."

Taking out a small note-case, in which the address was noted down, he halted at a street corner while he turned its leaves, and found himself in contact with William Stane. The gas in the streets and shops made it as light as mid-day: no chance had they to pretend not to see each other. A bow, exchanged coldly, and each passed on his way.

"I'll not notice him at all, should we meet again," said Charles to himself. And it might have been that Mr. Stane was saying the same thing. "Now for Doughty Street. I wonder which is the way to it?" deliberated he.

"Does Mr. Tanting live here?" inquired Charles of the young maid-servant, when he had found the right house.

"In the parlour there," replied the girl, pointing to a room on her left.

Without further ceremony, she went away, leaving him to introduce himself. A voice, that he supposed was Peter's, bade him "come in," in answer to his knock.

But he could not see Peter. A young fellow was stretched on the sofa in front of the fire. Charles rightly judged him to be the brother, Frederick Tanting. Young men are not, as a rule, very observant of one another, but Charles was struck with the appearance of the one before him. He was extremely good-looking; with fair hair, all in disorder, that shone like threads of gold in the firelight, glistening blue eyes, and a bright hectic flush on his thin cheeks.

"I beg your pardon," said Charley, as the invalid (for such he evidently was) half rose, and gazed at him. "I came to see Peter." "Oh, aye; sit down," was the answer, given in a cordial tone, but without much breath. "I expect him in every minute."

"You are Fred," observed Charles. "I daresay he told you of meeting me on Tuesday: Charles Raynor."

"Yes, he did. Do sit down. You don't mind my lying here ?" "Is it a cold you have taken ?" asked Charles, bringing forward a chair to the corner of the hearth.

"I suppose so. A fresh cold. You might have heard my breathing yesterday over the way. The doctor kept me in bed. He wanted to