A DILAPIDATED lodging-house, situated in a purlieu of Liverpool. Squalor and rags and pallid cheeks, flaunting vice, tinsel tawdry, and painted faces without; fierce wrestlings with fortune, hard battles with wolfish hunger, a crushing burden of human misery within-a place to which not even God's blessed sunshine seemed to lend a gleam of brightness.

A sharp peal came at the bellone of those sharp startling peals that make the human heart leap up with a vague dread of ill,-so sharp and so loud that the sound brought at once a large indolent girl-whose supine indifference it required a good deal to ruffle-into the narrow passage that served for a hall. She was the best-recognised type we have of that hope lessly-aggravating mixture of sulkiness, stubbornness, and uncleanliness yclept 'maid-of-all-work.'

'Janet Janet!'

The creature gave a sluggish glance over a ponderous shoulder, and saw a face looking over the crazy bannister the haggard anxious face of a woman past middle age, and furrowed with care, if not

VOL. XXI.

something deeper yet, and sharpened with wild apprehension.

'Janet,' the voice whispered hoarsely, 'mind, I am out if it's for me-have moved from here-gone miles and miles away-or dead! Better that-better that! O God, if it were but true!'

The girl Janet did not hear the last words, for they died out in a sort of faint dreary wail; but she was evidently familiar with the mysterious signals over the bannisters, for she assumed a 'stupid-knowing' look, and put a coarse plump red finger to her nether lip before she opened the door.

The woman up-stairs darted meanwhile back into her own room, succumbing to an impulse that bade her hide like a criminal or a thief-to cower out of reach of the cruel myrmidons of the law that she supposed to be hunting her down; but anxiety to learn the worst was keener even than the miserable heart - sickening dread. So back she stole on tiptoe to the head of the rickety stairs, and bent over, listening with bated breath.

The door was wide open. A cart stood before it, and a surly

B

visaged bull-headed man was bringing some heavy object up the stairs.

'Janet! Janet! tell the man to bring it up here,' cried the woman, with a curious tremolo of pleasure running through her thin voice; 'I know it is for me.'

'It's for you, sure enough, mum. It's written here, "Mrs. Keane, 15 Beacon Street," in a child's round hand. Now, man, it isn't so remarkable heavy for a big strong fellow like you. Take it Take it up-stairs.'

'How far is it going?'

'Right up to the very top of the house.'

The man puffed, panted, and grunted. Then up he went, his heavy footfall resounding on the carpetless stairs as he followed the owner of the chair up, up into an attic.

Here, after depositing his burden, and wiping his moist forehead, he waited, twirling his greasy cap round and round in his brawny hand, and casting several contemptuous looks on his surroundings, including the pale meek-faced woman standing before him, in her lustreless well-worn garments, and with an unmistakably tawdry cap crowning the iron-gray bands of her still luxuriant hair.

The lady for she was a lady by birth and education, notwithstand ing plenty of marks of ill-usage received on the arena of life-hesitated; then she took out a small portemonnaie, and, half turning her back on the man, peeped furtively into it.

'You have not been paid the carriage of that?' she questioned with a falter.

'Yes, mum; I have been paid for bringing it here; but they didn't count them steep stairs.'

She drew a deep breath of satisfaction; then, taking a fourpennypiece from her meagre purse, held it out.

Jehu eyed her, then the money, grimly.

'I have no small change about me-nothing under a five-pound note,' she said, in a low nervous voice, flushing crimson at the falsehood, and dropping her purse into her pocket.

The man muttered something under his breath; then, turning on his heel, walked off, leaving the fourpenny-bit and a villanous odour of cheap tobacco behind him.

Mrs. Keane crept to the window and watched him drive away, as if she could not feel thoroughly safe until he was fairly out of sight. Then she ran to her door, and, carefully bolting it, took out of an old deal box a shabby leathern letter-case. With a pair of scissors she hastily unripped one side of this, and pulling out a thick sheet of paper, scanned the printed contents with eager eyes.

'Dark-brown hair, fair skin,' she muttered half aloud. 'No, no; they wouldn't recognise them now. Thank God, thank God!' And she peered into a dim mirror. 'These gray hairs and sallow wrinkled face are my best friends after all.'

With shaking fingers she put back the paper into its hiding-place, stitched up the leather case, flung it into the old deal box, and, turning towards the newly-arrived chair, fell upon her knees beside it.

She laid her white cheek tenderly against the faded cushion, as if it were a living thing, and moaned the while piteously, like a poor wounded beast that had dragged itself back to some secure thicket which it had never hoped to reach again.

It was but an old mean-looking bit of furniture after all, fit, in its utter worthlessness of appearance, for a lumber-room; but it was broad and comfortable, notwithstanding that the rich amber silk

that had once rendered it a resplendent affair was frayed and stained beyond redemption.

One castor too was gone, and the chair leaned sideways as Mrs. Keane pressed her cheek down upon it, as though it were trying hard to edge away from her, just as all the friends of prosperous days had done.

After a while she raised her head, and, still kneeling on the attic-floor, surveyed her possession with a ghost of a smile.

'So this, of all I had, has come back to me!' she murmured. 'I never expected the poor folks would have returned it, for gratitude is a rare thing in this weary world. Suppose it had been a bill, or the police!'

She turned whiter even yet, then laughed out a little bitter laugh as the thought came to her. She had been so hunted down, with her wild apprehensions and with hungry creditors, that at last the chase had become a torturing interest even to its victim, just as all the wily cunning and energy of the fox are put forth when the merciless whelping hounds press to the death.

She arose at length, and stooping over, fell to examining the armchair with compassionate eyes.

'Poor thing, poor thing! It has had very hard usage too-like me. I wish the castor had not been lost. It looks like a wretched helpless cripple without it.'

She went to a cupboard, and fetching a basket, melancholy in its past splendour of beads and flosssilk, reseated herself on the floor, and commenced darning the frayed amber cover, smoothing it gently with her palm, and touching it caressingly, as fond mothers caress the heads of their children; and as she patiently darned the yawning rents, the pallid harassed-looking woman crooned, rather than sang, in a low sad voice,

"Oh, little things bring back to me

The thoughts of bygone hours, The lowing kine upon the lea, The murmur of the mountain bee, The scent of hawthorn flowers! Could those days but come again,

With their thorns and flowers, I would give the hopes of years

For those bygone hours.' And I would, I would! But they'll never come again-never, so long as I live! So better if I were dead, as the world thinks me. O God, if it were but true!'

While she worked, with the tears streaming down her face, the girl Janet had descended to the kitchen, where her mistress was busy superintending and cleaning.

'Who was that who came?' she asked, pausing in her labours.

'Only a cart with a chair for Mrs. Keane.'

'A chair! I wish a cart would bring her money to pay her rent with!' ejaculated the angry lodginghouse keeper, giving a violent and vicious tug to the blind she was dusting. Mrs. Keane has been paying me with fine promises long enough, and promises don't keep folk in clover. There's some one fiddling at the area-gate.'

Janet ascended the steps at a snail's pace, and undid the latch with a petulant gesture, her blowsy hair scattered by the wind in rugged odds and ends, her physiognomy shining up unpleasantly from the effects of soft-soap and unwonted locomotion.

A tiny blue-eyed child, who did not appear to be more than ten years of age, but who was in reality past thirteen, tripped gently by her with a basket on her arm—a rough wicker-basket, that was quite an omnium gatherum of utility-pins, needles, tapes, and bobbins.

'We don't want none,' remarked Janet tartly.

'Oh, yes, but you do. Where's your missus?'

And on she ran ahead, as blithe and bright as a bird-a sweet little,

fair-haired, winsome girl that talked like a grown-up woman.

'I know you want something, ma'am. She said you didn't; but I know better. It is over a fortnight since I was here. How many papers of pins ?'

'I never saw such a pushing little creature as you are, Nell Weston. We have plenty of pins left.'

'But I shall not come again for ever so long. There, I think three papers will do.' And a hand like a doll's was held out for payment. The lodging-house keeper looked at her in comical surprise; but the child refused to understand it.

'Oh, you can have more if you like,' she said-'lots of them left.'

'I don't want more,' Mrs. Wilcox answered, laughing; I only take these to get rid of you.'

'Yes, I know-twopence more, if you please, ma'am. What is that shining on the floor? Oh, I know; it's the little brass wheel that's fallen out of my basket, and belongs to the lady up-stairs.'

What lady up-stairs?'

'Why, Mrs. Keane, to be surea real, real lady-that was so good and kind to my mother. I have told you about that, haven't I?'

'Not you.'

'Have you sold things to Mrs. Keane ?'

'Sold, no! I would like to give her everything; but she wouldn't take it. She is a real lady, every inch of her.'

'Well, I wish she was lady enough to pay what she owes me.'

The child set down her basket, and going quite close up to the woman, peered into her hard face with wide-open startled eyes of curiosity and interest.

'How much does she owe you, maʼam—how much ?'

'What's that to you? Somewhere about five pounds or so.'

Nell recoiled visibly, while her face fell. She took up her basket, and went towards the door; then she returned, and said suddenly, with a sort of panic in her voice,

'Five pounds! Did you really mean that, ma'am ?'

'Yes, I did; and I mean something else too!'

'What's that?'

'To have my money, to be sure -every blessed farthing of it. Real ladies are no better than sham ones when they don't pay their honest debts. Where are you off to ?'

'Up-stairs, to give Mrs. Keane her little wheel.'

'Mind, not a word of what I have said.'

'Of course not, ma'am.'

Mrs. Keane was still singing in her low sad tone, and leaning over her armchair, drawing her needle in and out of the broken silk, when a gentle knock sounded at the door.

Gentle as that knock was, it fairly drove a quick grayish pallor across the poor thin cheeks, and made the busy hands fall nervelessly down. For a moment or two the door remained closed and bolted. At last it opened slowly, just a few inches.

'I have brought the little wheel, ma'am; it will make it stand straighter,' said Nell, in a quiet humble voice.

Mrs. Keane gave a start, and the blood came flying back to her face.

'Nell! Nell Weston! is it you? Come in. How is your father getting on? What have you got there -something to sell ?'

'Nothing fit for you, lady,' Nell answered, hastily drawing a corner of her little shawl over her basket.

'Oh, yes, I must take something.' And Mrs. Keane, from simple habit, drew out her purse; but she grew scarlet as she remembered how empty that purse was.

Then you won't sell me anything? Very well; next time I will not let your basket pass,' she said nervously, lowering her lids beneath the keen anxious look that spoke volumes in the childish blue eyes.

'I hope-oh, I hope the chair was not much spoilt, ma'am ! We tried hard to keep it nice; but she was so long sick, and loved to sit in it all the time. I can see her in it now, ma'am, with her poor white face leaning against the silk-just here!'

There were tears in the soft blue eyes, and tears in the little broken

voice, when the child laid her hand on the chair, and looked up into Mrs. Keane's face with such earnest wistful gratitude.

'I am glad, very glad, if anything I did made your poor sick mother more comfortable; but it was very little.'

'Very little, was it, ma'am? Didn't you give her everything? Didn't you get father's place back after the manager had turned him off, and give him money to buy the violin he loved so well, after it had gone clean out of his hands? Didn't you, oh, didn't you buy the prettiest shadiest corner for her to sleep in? O ma'am, I wish I could die for you-I would! I would l

Mrs. Keane looked at her for a moment in surprise. Then a great quiver of disturbed feeling swept over her features.

'Don't cry, little Nell; it makes me feel like a child again; and I am growing old-old! Don't make a baby of yourself-about nothing too!'

'Please to excuse me, ma'am,' sobbed Nell, wiping her eyes violently with her white apron. 'I don't cry very often; ask father if I do. Haven't made such a baby of myself since she said 'Good-bye, my little Nell;" and now I have gone and done it for you. Please just let me wipe my eyes, and forgive me.'

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She dried her tears vigorously; then she lifted the corner of her apron to Mrs. Keane's cheek, and tenderly brushed away one or two drops that glittered there.

The action seemed to touch the poor woman to the heart; and throwing her arms over the head of the armchair she bowed down her face upon them, and burst into a passion of weeping that fairly frightened the child.

'O Heaven! Of all that I have helped, of all that I have cared for,