speak to you safely. I promise you two good things. You shall bring Mrs. Farnaby to that day of reckoning; and we will find money enough to marry on comfortably as soon as you like.'

Phoebe's languid interest in the subject began to revive: she insisted on having a clearer explanation than this. 'Do you mean to get the money out of Mr. Farnaby?' she inquired,

'I will have nothing to do with Mr. Farnaby-unless I find that his wife's money is not at her own disposal. What you heard in the kitchen has altered all my plans. Wait a minute --and you will see what I am driving

'But nobody knows where the daughter is,' she objected.

You and I know that the daughter has a deformity in her left foot,' Jervy replied; and you and I know exactly in what part of the foot it is. There's not only money to be made out of that knowledge-but money made easily, without the slightest risk. Suppose I managed the matter by correspondence, without appearing in it personally? Don't you think Mrs. Farnaby would open her purse beforehand, if I mentioned the exact position of that little deformity, as a proof that I was to be depended on?'

Phoebe was unable, or unwilling to draw the obvious conclusion, even

now.

'But, what would you do,' she said, 'when Mrs. Farnaby insisted on seeing her daughter?'

There was something in the girl's tone-half fearful, half suspiciouswhich warned Jervy that he was treading on dangerous ground. He knew perfectly well what he proposed to do, in the case that had been so plainly put to him. It was the sim

plest thing in the world. He had only to make an appointment with Mrs. Farnaby for a meeting on a future day, and to take to flight in the interval; leaving a polite note behind him to say that it was all a mistake, and that he regretted being too poor to return the money. Thus far, the truth had flowed from him in an uninterrupted stream. The time had evidently come to check the flow. Phoebe was vain, Phoebe was vindictive; and more promising still, Phoebe was a fool. But she was not quite capable of consenting to an act of the vilest infamy, in cold blood. Jervy looked at her-and saw that the foreseen necessity for lying had come at last.

That's just the difficulty,' he said; 'that's just where I don't see my way plainly yet. Can you advise me?'

Phoebe started, and drew back from him. I advise you!' she exclaimed. 'It frightens me to think of it. If you make her believe she is going to see her daughter, and if she finds out that you have robbed and deceived her, I can tell you this- with her furiious temper-you would drive her

mad.'

6

Jervy's reply was a model of wellacted indignation. Don't talk of anything so horrible,' he exclaimed. 'If you believe me capable of such cruelty as that, go to Mrs. Farnaby and warn her at once!'

'It's too bad to speak to me in that way!' Phoebe rejoined, with the frank impetuosity of an offended woman. 'You know I would die rather than get you into trouble. Beg my pardon directly or I won't walk another step with you!'

Jervy made the necessary apologies, with all possible humility. He had gained his end-he could now postpone any further discussion of the subject, without arousing Phoebe's distrust. 'Let us say no more about it, for the present,' he suggested; 'we will think it over, and talk of pleasanter things in the mean time.

Kiss

me, my dear girl, there's nobody looking.'

So he made peace with his sweetheart, and secured to himself, at the same tine, the full liberty of future action of which he stood in need. If Phoebe asked any more questions, the necessary answer was obvious to the meanest capacity. He had merely to say, 'The matter is beset with difficulties which I didn't see at first-I have given it up.'

Their nearest way back to Phoebe's lodgings took them through the street which led to the Hampden Institution. Passing along the opposite side of the way, they saw the private door opened. Two men stepped out.

A third man,

inside, called after one of them, 'Mr. Goldenheart! you have left the statement of receipts in the waiting-room.' 'Never mind,' Amelius answered; 'the night's receipts are so small that I would rather not be reminded of them again.' 'In my country,' a third voice remarked, 'if he had lectured as he has lectured to-night, I reckon I'd have given him three hundred dollars, gold (sixty pounds, English currency), and have made my own profit by the transaction. The British nation has lost its taste, sir, for intellectual recreation. I wish you good-evening.'

Jervy hurried Phoebe out of the way, just as the two gentlemen were crossing the street. He had not forgotten events at Tadmor-and he was by no means eager to renew his former acquaintance with Amelius.

Come

waistcoat points to a downhearted state of the moral atmosphere. along to home with me-you want a whisky-cocktail badly.'

'No, thank you, my dear fellow,' Amelius answered a little sadly. 'I own I'm downhearted, as you say. You see, I expected this lecture to be a new opening for me. Personally, as you know, I don't care two straws about money. But my marriage depends on my adding to my income; and the first attempt I've made to do that has ended in a total failure. I'm all abroad again, when I look to the future-and I'm afraid I'm fool enough to let it weigh on my spirits. No, the cocktail isn't the right remedy for me. I don't get the exercise and fresh air, here, that I used to get at Tadmor. My head burns after all that talking to-night. A good long walk will put me right, and nothing else will.'

Rufus at once offered to accompany him. Amelius shook his head. 'Did you ever walk a mile in your life, when you could ride?' he asked goodhumouredly. I mean to be on my legs for four or five hours; I should only have to send you home in a cab. Thank you, old fellow, for the brotherly interest you take in me. I'll breakfast with you to-morrow, at your hotel. Good-night.'

Some curious prevision of evil seemed to trouble the mind of the good New Englander. He held Amelius fast by the hand: he said, very earnestly, 'It goes against the grit with me to see you wandering off by yourself at this time of night-it does, I tell you! Do me a favour for once, my bright boy-go right away to bed.' Amelius smiled, and released his hand. 'I shouldn't sleep, if I did go to bed. Breakfast to-morrow, at ten o'clock. Good-night, again.'

He started on his walk, at a pace which set pursuit on the part of Rufus at defiance. The American stood watching him, until he was lost to sight in the darkness. What a grip

that young fellow has got on me, in no more than a few months!' Rufus thought, as he slowly turned away in the direction of his hotel. 'Lord send the poor boy may keep clear of mischief this night!'

Meanwhile, Amelius walked on swiftly, straight before him, careless in what direction he turned his steps, so long as he felt the cool air and kept moving.

His thoughts were not at first occupied with the doubtful question of his marriage. The lecture was still the uppermost subject in his mind. He had reserved for the conclusion of his address the justification of his view of the future, afforded by the widespread and frightful poverty among the millions of the population of London alone. On this melancholy theme he had spoken with the eloquence of true feeling, and had produced a strong impression, even on those members of the audience who were most resolutely opposed to the opinions which he advocated. Without any undue exercise of self-esteem, he could look back on the close of his address with the conviction that he had really done justice to himself and to his cause. The retrospect of the public discussion that had followed failed to give him the same pleasure. His warm temper, his vehemently sincere belief in the truth of his own convictions, placed him at a serious disadvantage towards the more self-restrained speakers (all older than himself) who rose, one after another, to combat his views. More than once, he had lost his temper, and had been obliged to make his apologies. More than once, he had been indebted to the ready help of Rufus, who had taken part in the battle of words, with the generous purpose of covering his retreat.' 'No!' he thought to himself, with bitter humility, 'I'm not fit for public discussions. If they put me into Parliament to-morrow, I should only get called to order and do nothing.'

He reached the bank of the Thames, at the eastward end of the Strand.

Walking straight on, as absently as ever, he crossed Waterloo Bridge, and followed the broad street that lay before him on the other side. He was thinking of the future again: Regina was in his mind now. The one prospect that he could see of a tranquil and happy life-with duties as well as well as pleasures; duties that might rouse him to find the vocation for which he was fit-was the prospect of his marriage. What was the obstacle that stood in his way? The vile obstacle of money; the contemptible spirit of ostentation which forbade him to live humbly on his own sufficient little income, and insisted that he should purchase domestic happiness at the price of the tawdry splendour of a rich tradesman and his friends. And Regina, who was free to follow her own better impulses-Regina, whose heart acknowledged him as its master-bowed before the golden image which was the tutelary deity of her uncle's household, and said resignedly, 'Love must wait!

Still walking blindly on, he was roused on a sudden to a sense of passing events. Crossing a side-street at the moment, a man caught him roughly by the arm and saved him from being run over. The man had a broom in his hand; he was a crossingsweeper. 'I think I've earned my penny, sir,' he said.

Amelius gave him half-a-crown. The man shouldered his broom, and tossed up the money, in a transport of delight. Here's something to go home with!' he cried, as he caught the halfcrown again.

'Have you got a family at home?' Amelius asked.

'Only one, sir,' said the man. 'The others are all dead. She's as good a girl and as pretty a girl as ever put on a petticoat-though I say it that shouldn't. Thank you kindly, sir, good-night!

Amelius looked after the poor fel

low, happy at least for that night! If I had only been lucky enough to fall in love with the crossing-sweeper's daughter,' he thought bitterly, she would have married me when I asked her.'

It

He looked along the street. curved away in the distance, with no visible limit to it. Arrived at the next side-street on his left, Amelius turned down it, weary of walking longer in the same direction. Whither it might lead him he neither knew nor cared. In his present humour, it was a pleasurable sensation to feel himself lost in London.

The short street suddenly widened; a blaze of flaring gaslight dazzled his eyes; he heard all round him the shouting of innumerable voices. For the first time since he had been in London, he found himself in one of the street-markets of the poor.

On either side of the roadway, the barrows of the costermongersthe wandering tradesmen of the highway -were drawn up in rows; and every man was advertising his wares, by means of the cheap publicity of his own voice. Fish and vegetables; pot

tery and writing-paper; lookingglasses, saucepans, and coloured prints -all appealed together to the scantilyfilled purses of the crowds who thronged the pavement. One lusty vagabond, stood up in a rickety donkey-cart, knee deep in apples, selling a great wooden-measure full for a penny, and yelling louder than all the rest. 'Never was such apples sold in the public streets before! Sweet as flowers, and sound as a bell. Who says the poor ain't looked after,' cried the fellow, with ferocious irony, ' when they can have such apple-sauce as this to their loin of pork? Here's nobby apples; here's a pennorth for your money. Sold again! Hullo, you! you look hungry. Catch! There's an apple for nothing, just to taste. Be in time, be in time, before they're all sold!' Amelius moved forward a few steps, and was half deafened by rival butchers, shout

ing, 'Buy, buy, buy!' to audiences of ragged women, who fingered the meat doubtfully, with longing eyes. A little farther and there was a blind man, selling staylaces, and singing a Psalm; and, beyond him again, a brokendown soldier playing God save the Queen' on a tin flageolet. The one silent person in this sordid carnival was a Lascar beggar, with a printed placard round his neck, addressed to The Charitable Public.' He held a tallow-candle to illuminate the copious narrative of his misfortunes; and the one reader he obtained was a fat man, who scratched his head, and remarked to Amelius that he didn't like foreigners. Starving boys and girls lurked among the costermongers' barrows, and begged piteously on pretence of selling cigar-lights and comic songs. Furious women stood at the doors of public-houses, and railed on their drunken husbands for spending the housemoney in gin. A thicker crowd, towards the middle of the street, poured in and out at the door of a cookshop. Here the people presented a less terrible spectacle they were even touching to see. These were the patient poor, who bought hot morsels of sheep's heart and liver at a penny an ounce, with lamentable little mouthsful of peas-pudding, greens, and potatoes at a halfpenny each. Pale children in corners supped on penny basins of soup, and looked with hungry admiration at their enviable neighbours who could afford to buy stewed eels for twopence. Everywhere there was the same noble resignation to their hard fate, in old and young alike. No impatience, no complaints. In this

wretched place, the language of true gratitude was still to be heard, thanking the good-natured cook for a little spoonful of gravy thrown in for nothing--and here, humble mercy that had its one superfluous halfpenny to spare gave that halfpenny to utter destitution, and gave it with right good-will. Amelius spent all his shillings and sixpences, in doubling and trebling