her. You must not think that they found fault with her to her face; but in the joy with which they greeted the light of the Morning, it was sufficiently evident how little affection they had for the Night. You may be sure how this grieved her, for she was of a kind and loving disposition. She wrapped

her head in a thick veil to hide her bitter tears. This moved us compassionate flowers deeply, and as every creature held aloof from her, we endeavoured to give her as much pleasure as we were able, although we could do but little to lessen her sorrow. We had nothing to offer but our colours and odours, and the Night had never had any great partiality for colours. So we spared our most delicious scents for her; some of us indeed, the Night-scenting Violet for example, no longer emitted her sweet odours by day, in order that she might present them to the Night, and this habit she has adhered to, as you know. But all this could not comfort the mourner, and she threw herself, in her sorrow before the Creator's throne.

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Almighty Father,' she began, Thou seest how happy every part of Thy creation is, I alone, wander about the earth, sad, lonely, and unloved, and have no creature to whom I can confide my grief. The Day flies before me though I follow him eagerly; and as he, so do all other creatures turn away from me. Therefore, almighty Father, have pity upon me, and give me a companion !'

"The Creator smiled graciously and answered the prayer of the Night by creating Sleep, and giving him to her as a companion. Is it not evident that the Creator smiled as he created him, for is he not loved by all, and does he not distribute blessing, happiness, and comfort? The Night took her friend to her bosom, and now a very different period began. Not only was she no longer alone, but all hearts inclined to her, now that she brought Sleep, the favourite of all living creatures with her, when she chased the Day from the face of the earth. Other friendly beings soon followed in her train, the children of Night and Sleep-the Dreams. They wandered over the earth with their parents, and were soon friends with men, who were themselves still children at heart. But, alas! there was soon a change. Passions awoke in

the hearts of men, and their minds became less and less pure. Children are easily influenced by bad example, and so it happened that some of the Dreams, through their intercourse with men, became fickle, deceitful, and unkind. Sleep noticed this change in his children, and would have driven the degenerate ones away, had not their brothers and sisters entreated for them, and said: 'Let our brothers stay with us, they are not so bad as they seem, and we promise you to do our best to make reparation, wherever they do harm.' The father granted his children's prayer, and so the bad Dreams have remained in his company, but, strange to say, experience has taught that they always feel themselves most attracted by bad men.

"But man became worse and worse. One lovely night a man lay on the scented turf, when Sleep and the Dreams came up to him, but Sin prevented them from acquiring any influence over him. A fearful thought arose in his mind, the thought of murder-the murder of his brother. In vain did Sleep sprinkle soothing drops from his magic wand over him; in vain did the Dreams hover round him with their variegated pictures,—he continually broke loose from their gentle bonds. Then Sleep called his children around him. 'Let us flee,' he said, 'this mortal is not worthy of our gifts!' and they fled. They were already distant when Sleep took his magic wand, and planted it in the earth, half angry that it had shown so little power. The Dreams hung upon it the light and airy variegated pictures which they had wished to present to the bad man. The Night saw this, and breathed life into the wand, so that it struck out roots in the earth. It put forth green leaves, but still continued to conceal the drops which summon sleep. And the gifts of the Dreams became fluttering leaves, delicate and gay. And so we Poppies had our origin."

The tale was ended, and from all sides the flowers bowed their heads in thanks to the narrator. It was by this time dawn. When

it was fully light, the leaves of a Centifolia came fluttering through the wood, staying a while by each flower as they passed it, and whispering to each one a sorrowful adieu. And tears stood in every flower.

CHAPTER VII.

NELLY'S TROUBLES.

THE hope of work and good wages, which had led Joe Appleshaw to London, proved to be, at least for some time, quite illusory. The great contractor, for whom Ned Bingley worked, had his complement of men; and till a vacancy occurred, or a new job was commenced, Joe stood little chance of employment. But thoroughly zealous in his friend's behalf, Ned Bingley spoke to many about him, praised his sterling honesty and industry, as well as sought, in many directions, when his own day's work was done, those who might know of a job, or speak in the poor fellow's behalf. But this without

result.

For full a fortnight the Appleshaws remained at Nix's lodging, Bingley paying the rent, and getting trust for food for them. But in spite of this hearty proof of friendship, the poor family's life was a most wretched one, not so much because of poverty or disappointment, for to both they had served a bitter apprenticeship; but on account of the miserable home and its contaminations, which necessity made theirs. Joe was better off than Nelly. Accompanied by little Dick, if the weather was fine, he was out all day seeking work at wharves, warehouses, docks, and shops; but she, who had her children to take care of, and other place of refuge, had to bear these evils in all their unmitigated bitterness. For in countless respects the lodging was worse by day than by night. Its relay of guests consisted, for the most part, of those whose occupations would not bear the light, and if there were a few whose callings were ostensible and honest, they were in minority. Thus the night prowlers and night workers, flocking to the lodging, just as those who had occupied it through the night, took their departure for the day, there was, as it were, an endless stream of occupants-an endless Babel of tongues that was never still. The huge cinder-heaped fire-place was, more or less, always surrounded by a motley crowd; on its top eternally hissed, like an ever

* Continued from page 139. VOL. VIII. N. S.

angry snake, the great frying pan; the mighty iron kettle seemed, like the witches' caldron, to be ever seething; minor pots and kettles were ever on the hob; an array of toasting forks and sticks, with divers eatables thereon, from a herring or sprat, up ascendingly to the fragmentary dainties of some "lordship's larder," were ever being brandished before the bars; and on a line beneath the black and broken mantle-shelf a mass of soddened frowsy rags mostly swung. With this relay of guests the beds were ever occupied, the rooms unaired, and cleanliness in any shape or way impossible. Thus the day was in all respects worse than the night in Nix's lodgings. The guests were of a still more degraded class; the moral and physical atmosphere, if that were possible, more deadly; and what night tenderly hid of squalor, dilapidation, vice, dirt, and wretchedness, stood out in all their intensity in such little daylight as streamed into this filthy den.

As to Nix and the woman, who might or might not be his wife, their life was an extraordinary one. Always ubiquitous, always astir, for it was a mystery at what hours they took their rest, always shut up in the pestiferous little nook where they had ensconced themselves, they seemed to follow one unvarying round of eating, drinking, and taking money. The man never went abroad, the woman rarely, and that at night time; her errand usually to buy some luxurious dainty for supper, or some tawdry piece of finery for herself. If lodgers were more plentiful than usual—if the harvest reaped of degradation were abundant-then Mrs. Nix surely sallied forth to purchase flashy ribbons, ear-rings of length and weight, if not intrinsicness, and brooches of huge circumference. If dainties were wanting, she went forth in quest of them, though on this errand more rarely than on others, for the cadgers frequenting the lodging had usually something left unsold at evening time, and thus a bargain in the shape of fish, flesh, or fowl, usually graced the Nix's table. If no such sacrifice were offered, then the woman sallied forth with dish or basket for the finest piece of fresh salmon, the primest fowl, or the freshest oysters money could procure.

For a few days Nelly strove with hearty zeal to fight some of the countless evils around her, but they proved her master. She asked for water, and could get none; she repeated her question as to where it could be found, and got laughed at. On those days it ran for a little while into the filthy butt in the cellar, she patiently waited a long time previously to its coming, with the usual result of procuring no more than a pitcher-full, so dense would be the crowd of slipshod claimants, and so unceremonious and rude their behaviour to each other. Then, as a last resource, she tried to beg water from the neighbours, but an oath or rebuff was the usual reward. Occasionally she met with civility, and had her wants supplied, but it was sad work at best. Thus the children had to go comparatively dirty, and their clothes remain unwashed, both matters causing infinite distress to their cleanly, thrifty mother, whose duty to her little children had hitherto greatly honoured her. Through all her days of poverty, sickness, and misfortune, they had never been neglected; they had rested on beds which could not have been excelled in cleanliness, though coarse and poor; and their little patched garments had been washed in the running brook, and had dried scented by fragrant winds, or by the gorse or fern on which they lay. But there were sadder and more pregnant evils than even this of enforced uncleanliness. Do what she would Nelly could not always prevent her children playing with others that frequented the lodgings. With her baby to attend to, she could not for ever be on the watch, and thus her children soon found companions; and incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, laughed as merrily, and were as much amused at games plainly imitative of criminal or brutalizing acts, as at things more befitting innocence and childhood. Then, too, their ears were ever ready to listen to the coarse jest, the vile song, the blasphemous oath, and a few days of this sort of companionship soon proved how easy it is to corrupt, and how facile the imitative power in children. To obviate what she might of these evils, Nelly took refuge in a corner of the great kitchen, and hung an old blanket she had brought with her, as a sort of screen before her little family; but lured by the merry voices of the children on the other side, they would creep under it or round it, and be merry too before she was aware. At

other times, when busy in some occupation for herself or family, which she did not wish the staring throng to witness, she would find herself suddenly exposed and made the jest of the room by some hulking fellow, fresh, perhaps, from a night robbery, or by a girl as shameless, jerking the blanket off the nails which held it, and so bringing her screen about her feet. It was natural she should feel annoyed, vexed, and angry; but who cared in such a place as this?-where the more cruel and brutal the act, the more rich the jest! Some few, not quite lost to all kindly feeling or sense of decency, would cry shame!" or join Nelly in an appeal to Mrs. Nix. But, as a matter of course, there was neither redress to be had, nor prevention effected; for those who enjoyed cruelty at another's expense were in large majority, and neither Nix nor the woman liked any one, who by decency or gentleness made the hideous sin around look still blacker in its dye. In fact, both landlord and landlady took a strange dislike to the comely peasant woman; and whilst the latter, with that perversity which is so characteristic of innate viciousness, strove by such annoyances as it lay in her power to effect, to add to the misery of this unholy home, the former told poor Nelly, when she made complaint or sought redress, that pretences o' being better than t'other folks didn't suit there; and that if she minded a bit o' larking or funny saying, or an oath or two, she must go elsewhere, as the place wasn't a church, and didn't want a parson; mealy-mouthed folks musn't come to Nix's lodgings."

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Yet, amidst the depravity and license of this unhallowed den, glimpses of better things, traces of the divinity which will at times show itself even in natures the most lost and abandoned in their low estate,-were far from being absent. There was little Nance, who, taking a liking to Nelly and her children, cleaved to them with a strange deep love; there was Luigi, the little Italian boy and his pet monkey; Bernardo, a poor fellow who sold plaster casts about the streets; and a woman of about sixty, whom nobody knew by any other name than that of Bet. The latter, hiding her past history in her own breast, betrayed in part what it must have been, by manners and conversation which still bore traces of refinement and education, when she was not soddened by drink. This was too often the case, but when even in a degree sober, nothing could