The something was said. It amounted to this—"Stand by me and I'll stand by you."

"Well, sir," said Henry, "I think I must leave you if the committees refuse my offer. It is hard for one man to fight a couple of trades in such a place as this. But I'm firm in one thing: until those that govern the unions say 'no' to my offer, I shall go on working, and the scum of the trades sha'n't frighten me away from my forge."

"That's right; let the blackguards bluster. Bayne tells me you have had another anonymous."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, look here: you must take care of yourself, outside the works; but, I'll take care of you inside. Here, Bayne, write a notice that, if any man molests, intimidates, or affronts Mr. Little, in my works, I'll take him myself to the town-hall, and get him two months directly. Have somebody at the gate to put a printed copy of that into every man's hand as he leaves."

"Thank you, sir!" said Henry, warmly. "But ought not the police to afford me protection, outside?"

"The police! You might as well go to the beadle. No; change your lodging, if you think they know it. Don't let them track you home. Buy a brace of pistols, and, if they catch you in a dark place, and try to do you, give them a barrel or two before they can strike a blow. No one of THEM will ever tell the police, not if you shot his own brother dead at that game. The law is a dead letter here, sir. You've nothing to expect from it, and nothing to fear."

"Good heavens! Am I in England?"

"In England? No. You are in Hillsborough."

This epigram put Cheetham in good humor with himself, and, when Henry told him he did not feel quite safe, even in his own forge, nor in his handling-room, and gave his reasons, "Oh," said cheerful Cheetham, "that is nothing. Yours is a box-lock; the blackguard will have hid in the works at night, and taken the lock off, left his writing, and then screwed the lock on again: that is nothing to any Hillsborough hand. But I'll soon stop that game. Go you to Chestnut Street, and get two first-class Bramah locks. There's a pocket knife forge upstairs, close to your handling-room. I'll send the pocket-knife hand down-stairs, and you fasten the Bramah locks on both doors, and keep the keys yourself. See to that now at once: then your mind will be easy. And I shall be in the works all day now, and every day: come to me directly, if there is any thing fresh."

Henry's forge was cold, by this time; so he struck work, and spent the afternoon in securing his two rooms with the Bramah locks. He also took Cheetham's advice in another particular. Instead of walking home, he took a cab, and got the man to drive rapidly to a certain alley. There he left the cab, ran down the alley, and turned a corner, and went home round about. He doubled like a hare, and dodged like a criminal evading justice.

But the next morning he felt a pleasing sense of security when he opened his forge-room with the Bramah key, and found no letters nor threats of any kind had been able to penetrate.

Moreover, all this time you will understand he was visiting "Woodbine Cottage" twice a week, and carving Grace Carden's bust.

Those delightful hours did much to compensate him for his troubles in the town, and were even of some service to him in training him to fence with the trades of Hillsborough: for at "Woodbine Villa" he had to keep an ardent passion within the strict bounds of reverence, and in the town he had constantly to curb another passion, wrath, and keep it within the bounds of prudence. These were kindred exercises of self-restraint, and taught him self-government beyond his years. But what he benefited most by, after all, was the direct and calming effect upon his agitated heart, and irritated nerves, that preceded, and accompanied, and followed these sweet, tranquilizing visits. They were soft, solacing, and soothing; they were periodical and certain, he could count on leaving his cares and worries, twice every week, at the door of that dear villa; and, when he took them up again, they were no longer the same; heavenly balm had been shed over them, and over his boiling blood.

One Saturday he heard, by a side-wind, that the Unions at a general meeting had debated his case, and there had been some violent speeches, and no decision come to; but the majority adverse to him. This discouraged him sadly, and his yearning heart turned all the more toward his haven of rest, and the hours, few but blissful, that awaited him.

About 11 o'clock, that same day, the postman brought him a letter, so vilely addressed, that it had been taken to two or three places, on speculation, before it reached its destination.

Little saw at once it was another anonymous communication. But he was getting callous to these missives, and he even took it with a certain degree of satisfaction. "Well done, Bramah! Obliged to send their venom by post now." This was the feeling uppermost in his mind. In short, he opened the letter with as much contempt as anger.

But he had no sooner read the foul scrawl, than his heart died within him.

"Thou's sharp but not sharp enow. We know where thou goes courting up hill. Window is all glass and ripe for a Peter shall blow the house tatums. There's the stuff in Hillsbro and the men that have done others so, and will do her job as wells thine. Powders a good servant but a bad master.

"ONE WHO MEANS DOING WHAT HE SAYS."

At this diabolical threat, young Little leaned sick and broken over the handle of his bellows.

Then he got up, and went to Mr. Cheetham, and said, patiently, "Sir, I am sorry to say I must leave you this very day."

"Don't say that, Little, don't say that."

"Oh it is with a heavy heart, sir; and I shall always remember your kindness. But a man knows when he is beat. And I'm beat now." He hung his head in silence awhile. Then he said, in a faint voice, "This is what has done it, sir," and handed him the letter.

Mr. Cheetham examined it, and said, "I am not surprised at your being taken aback by this. But it's nothing new to us; we have all been threatened in this form. Why, the very last time I fought the trades, my wife was threatened I should be brought home on a shutter, with my intestines sweeping the ground. That was the purport, only it was put vernacular and stronger. And they reminded me that the old gal's clothes (that is Mrs. Cheetham: she is only twenty-six, and the prettiest lass in Coventry, and has a row of ivories that would do your heart good: now these Hillsborough hags haven't got a set of front teeth among 'em, young or old). Well, they told me the old gal's clothes could easily be spoiled, and her doll's face and all, with a penn'orth of vitriol."

"The monsters!"

"But it was all brag. These things are threatened fifty times, for once they are done."

"I shall not risk it. My own skin, if you like. But not hers: never, Mr. Cheetham: oh, never; never!"

"Well, but," said Mr. Cheetham, "she is in no danger so long as you keep away from her. They might fling one of their petards in at the window, if you were there; but otherwise, never, in this world. No, no, Little, they are not so bad as that. They have blown up a whole household, to get at the obnoxious party; but they always make sure he is there first."

Bayne was appealed to, and confirmed this; and, with great difficulty, they prevailed on Little to remain with them, until the Unions should decide; and to discontinue his visits to the house on the hill in the meantime. I need hardly say they had no idea the house on the hill was "Woodbine Villa."

He left them, and, sick at heart, turned away from Heath Hill, and strolled out of the lower part of the town, and wandered almost at random, and sad as death.

He soon left the main road, and crossed a stile; it took him by the side of a babbling brook, and at the edge of a picturesque wood. Ever and anon he came to a water-wheel, and above the water-wheel a dam made originally by art, but now looking like a sweet little lake. They were beautiful places; the wheels and their attendant works were old and rugged, but picturesque and countrified; and the little lakes behind, fringed by the master-grinder's garden, were strangely peaceful and pretty. Here the vulgar labor of the grindstone was made beautiful and incredibly poetic.

"Ah!" thought poor Little, "how happy a workman must be that plies his trade here in the fresh air. And how unfortunate I am to be tied to a power-wheel, in that filthy town, instead of being here, where Nature turns the wheel, and the birds chirp at hand, and the scene and the air are all purity and peace."

One place of the kind was particularly charming. The dam was larger than most, and sloping grass on one side, cropped short by the grinder's sheep: on the other his strip of garden: and bushes and flowers hung over the edge and glassed themselves in the clear water. Below the wheel, and at one side, was the master-grinder's cottage, covered with creepers.

But Henry's mind was in no state to enjoy these beauties. He envied them; and, at last, they oppressed him, and he turned his back on them, and wandered, disconsolate, home.

He sat down on a stool by his mother, and laid his beating temples on her knees.

"What is it, my darling?" said she softly.

"Well, mother, for one thing, the Unions are against me, and I see I shall have to leave Hillsborough, soon or late."

"Never mind, dear; happiness does not depend upon the place we live in; and oh, Henry, whatever you do, never quarrel with those terrible grinders and people. The world is wide. Let us go back to London; the sooner the better. I have long seen there was something worrying you. But Saturday and Monday—they used to be your bright days."

"It will come to that, I suppose," said Henry, evading her last observation. "Yes," said he, wearily, "it will come to that." And he sighed so piteously that she forbore to press him. She had not the heart to cross-examine her suffering child.

That evening, mother and son sat silent by the fire: Henry had his own sad and bitter thoughts; and Mrs. Little was now brooding over the words Henry had spoken in the afternoon; and presently her maternal anxieties found a copious vent. She related to him, one after another, all the outrages that had been perpetrated in Hillsborough, while he was a child, and had been, each in its turn, the town talk.

It was a subject on which, if her son had been older, and more experienced in her sex, he would have closed her mouth promptly, she being a woman whose own nerves had received so frightful a shock by the manner of her husband's death. But, inadvertently, he let her run on, till she told him how a poor grinder had been carried home to his wife, blinded and scorched with gunpowder, and another had been taken home, all bleeding, to his mother, so beaten and bruised with life-preservers, that he had laid between life and death for nine days, and never uttered one word all that time, in reply to all her prayers and tears.

Now Mrs. Little began these horrible narratives with a forced and unnatural calmness; but, by the time she got to the last; she had worked herself up to a paroxysm of sympathy with other wretched women in Hillsborough, and trembled all over, like one in an ague, for herself: and at last stretched out her shaking hands, and screamed to him, "Oh, Harry, Harry, have pity on your miserable mother! Think what these eyes of mine have seen—bleeding at my feet—there—there—I see it now"—(her eyes dilated terribly at the word)—"oh, promise me, for pity's sake, that these—same—eyes—shall never see YOU brought and laid down bleeding like HIM!" With this she went into violent hysterics, and frightened her son more than all the ruffians in the town had ever frightened him.

She was a long time in this pitiable condition, and he nursed her: but at last her convulsion ceased, and her head rested on her son's shoulder in a pitiable languor.

Henry was always a good son: but he never loved his mother so tenderly as he did this night. His heart yearned over this poor panting soul, so stately in form, yet so weak, so womanly, and lovable; his playmate in childhood; his sweet preceptor in boyhood; the best friend and most unselfish lover he had, or could ever hope to have, on earth; dear to him by her long life of loving sacrifice, and sacred by that their great calamity, which had fallen so much heavier on her than on him.

He soothed her, he fondled her, he kneeled at her feet, and promised her most faithfully he would never be brought home to her bruised or bleeding. No; if the Unions rejected his offer he would go back to London with her at once.

And so, thrust from Hillsborough by the trades, and by his fears for Miss Carden, and also drawn from it by his mother's terrors, he felt himself a feather on the stream of Destiny; and left off struggling: beaten, heart-sick, and benumbed, he let the current carry him like any other dead thing that drifts.

He still plied the hammer, but in a dead-alive way.

He wrote a few cold lines to Mr. Jobson, to say that he thought it was time for a plain answer to be given to a business proposal. But, as he had no great hope the reply would be favorable, he awaited it in a state bordering on apathy. And so passed a miserable week.

And all this time she, for whose sake he denied himself the joy and consolation of her company, though his heart ached and pined for it, had hard thoughts of him, and vented them too to Jael Dence.

The young are so hasty in all their judgments.

While matters were in this condition, Henry found, one morning, two fresh panes of glass broken in his window.

In these hardware works the windows seldom or never open: air is procured in all the rooms by the primitive method of breaking a pane here and a pane there; and the general effect is as unsightly as a human mouth where teeth and holes alternate. The incident therefore was nothing, if it had occurred in any other room; but it was not a thing to pass over in this room, secured by a Bramah lock, the key of which was in Henry's pocket: the panes must have been broken from the outside. It occurred to him directly that a stone had been thrown in with another threatening scrawl.

But, casting his eye all round, he saw nothing of the kind about.

Then, for a moment, a graver suspicion crossed his mind: might not some detonating substance of a nature to explode when trodden upon, have been flung in? Hillsborough excelled in deviltries of this kind.

Henry thought of his mother, and would not treat the matter lightly or unsuspiciously. He stood still till he had lighted a lucifer match, and examined the floor of his room. Nothing.

He lighted a candle, and examined all the premises. Nothing.

But, when he brought his candle to the window, he made a discovery: the window had two vertical iron uprights, about three-quarters of an inch in circumference: and one of these revealed to his quick eye a bright horizontal line. It had been sawed with a fine saw.

Apparently an attempt had been made to enter his room from outside.

The next question was, had that attempt succeeded.

He tried the bar; it was not quite cut through.

He locked the forge up directly, and went to his handling room. There he remained till Mr. Cheetham entered the works; then he went to him, and begged him to visit his forge.

Mr. Cheetham came directly, and examined the place carefully.

He negatived, at once, the notion that any Hillsborough hand had been unable to saw through a bar of that moderate thickness. "No," said he, "they were disturbed, or else some other idea struck them all of a sudden; or else they hadn't given themselves time, and are coming again to-morrow. I hope they are. By six o'clock to-night, I'll have a common wooden shutter hung with six good hinges on each side, easy to open at the center; only, across the center, I'll fix a Waterloo cracker inside."

"A Waterloo cracker!"

"Ay, but such a one as you never saw. I shall make it myself. It shall be only four inches long, but as broad as my hand, and enough detonating powder in it to blow the shutter fifty feet into the air: and if there should be one of Jobson's lads behind the shutter at the time, why he'll learn flying, and naught to pay for wings."

"Why, sir, you are planning the man's death!"

"And what is HE planning? Light your forge, and leave the job to me. I'm Hillsborough too, and they've put my blood up at last."

While Henry lighted his forge, Mr. Cheetham whipped out a rule, and measured the window exactly. This done, he went down the stairs, and crossed the yard to go to his office.

But, before he could enter it, a horrible thing occurred in the room he had just left; so horrible, it made him, brave as he was, turn and scream like a woman.

Some miscreant, by a simple but ingenious means, which afterward transpired, had mixed a quantity of gunpowder with the smithy-slack or fine cinders of Henry's forge. The moment the forge was hot, the powder ignited with a tremendous thud, a huge mass of flame rushed out, driving the coals with it, like shot from a gun; Henry, scorched, blackened, and blinded, was swept, as by a flaming wind, against the opposite wall; then, yelling, and stark mad with fright (for nothing drives men out of their wits like an explosion in a narrow space), he sprang at the window, head foremost, and with such velocity that the sawed iron snapped like a stick of barley-sugar, and out he went head foremost; and this it was made Cheetham scream, to see him head downward, and the paving-stones below.

But the aperture was narrow: his body flew through, but his tight arm went round the unbroken upright, and caught it in the bend of the elbow.

Then Cheetham roared, "Hold on, Little! Hold on, I tell you!"

The scared brain of a man accustomed to obey received the command almost without the mind; and the grinders and forgers, running wildly into the yard, saw the obnoxious workman, black as a cinder from head to foot, bleeding at the face from broken glass, hanging up there by one hand, moaning with terror, and looking down with dilating eye, while thick white smoke rushed curling out, as if his body was burning. Death by suffocation was at his back, and broken bones awaited him below.



CHAPTER VI.

At sight of this human cinder, hanging by one hand between two deaths, every sentiment but humanity vanished from the ruggedest bosom, and the skilled workmen set themselves to save their unpopular comrade with admirable quickness and judgment: two new wheel-bands, that had just come into the works, were caught up in a moment, and four workmen ran with them and got below the suspended figure: they then turned back to back, and, getting the bands over their shoulders, pulled hard against each other. This was necessary to straighten the bands: they weighed half a hundred weight each. Others stood at the center of the bands, and directed Little where to drop, and stood ready to catch him should he bound off them.

But now matters took an unexpected turn. Little, to all appearance, was blind and deaf. He hung there, moaning, and glaring, and his one sinewy arm supported his muscular but light frame almost incredibly. He was out of his senses, or nearly.

"Let thyself come, lad," cried a workman, "we are all right to catch thee."

He made no answer, but hung there glaring and moaning.

"The man will drop noane, till he swouns," said another, watching him keenly.

"Then get you closer to the wall, men," cried Cheetham, in great anxiety. "He'll come like a stone, when he does come." This injunction was given none too soon; the men had hardly shifted their positions, when Little's hand opened, and he came down like lead, with his hands all abroad, and his body straight; but his knees were slightly bent, and he caught the bands just below the knee, and bounded off them into the air, like a cricket-ball. But many hands grabbed at him, and the grinder Reynolds caught him by the shoulder, and they rolled on the ground together, very little the worse for that tumble. "Well done! well done!" cried Cheetham. "Let him lie, lads, he is best there for a while; and run for a doctor, one of you."

"Ay, run for Jack Doubleface," cried several voices at once.

"Now, make a circle, and give him air, men." Then they all stood in a circle, and eyed the blackened and quivering figure with pity and sympathy, while the canopy of white smoke bellied overhead. Nor were those humane sentiments silent; and the rough seemed to be even more overcome than the others: no brains were required to pity this poor fellow now; and so strong an appeal to their hearts, through their senses, roused their good impulses and rare sensibilities. Oh, it was strange to hear good and kindly sentiments come out in the Dash dialect.

"It's a —— shame!"

"There lies a good workman done for by some —— thief, that wasn't fit to blow his bellows, —— him!"

"Say he WAS a cockney, he was always —— civil."

"And life's as sweet to him as to any man in Hillsborough."

"Hold your —— tongue, he's coming to."

Henry did recover his wits enough to speak; and what do you think was his first word?

He clasped his hands together, and said,—"MY MOTHER! OH, DON'T LET HER KNOW!"

This simple cry went through many a rough heart; a loud gulp or two were heard soon after, and more than one hard and coaly cheek was channeled by sudden tears. But now a burly figure came rolling in; they drew back and silenced each other.—"The Doctor!" This was the remarkable person they called Jack Doubleface. Nature had stuck a philosophic head, with finely-cut features, and a mouth brimful of finesse, on to a corpulent and ungraceful body, that yawed from side to side as he walked.

The man of art opened with two words. He looked up at the white cloud, which was now floating away; sniffed the air, and said, "Gunpowder!" Then he looked down at Little, and said, "Ah!" half dryly, half sadly. Indeed several sentences of meaning condensed themselves into that simple interjection. At this moment, some men, whom curiosity had drawn to Henry's forge, came back to say the forge had been blown up, and "the bellows torn limb from jacket, and the room strewed with ashes."

The doctor laid a podgy hand on the prisoner's wrist: the touch was light, though the fingers were thick and heavy. The pulse, which had been very low, was now galloping and bounding frightfully. "Fetch him a glass of brandy-and-water," said Dr. Amboyne. (There were still doctors in Hillsborough, though not in London, who would have had him bled on the spot.)

"Now, then, a surgeon! Which of you lads operates on the eye, in these works?"

A lanky file-cutter took a step forward. "I am the one that takes the motes out of their eyes."

"Then be good enough to show me his eye."

The file-cutter put out a hand with fingers prodigiously long and thin, and deftly parted both Little's eyelids with his finger and thumb, so as to show the whole eye.

"Hum!" said the doctor, and shook his head.

He then patted the sufferer all over, and the result of that examination was satisfactory. Then came the brandy-and-water; and while Henry's teeth were clattering at the glass and he was trying to sip the liquid, Dr. Amboyne suddenly lifted his head, and took a keen survey of the countenances round him. He saw the general expression of pity on the rugged faces. He also observed one rough fellow who wore a strange wild look: the man seemed puzzled, scared, confused like one half awakened from some hideous dream. This was the grinder who had come into the works in place of the hand Cheetham had discharged for refusing to grind cockney blades.

"Hum!" said Dr. Amboyne, and appeared to be going into a brown study.

But he shook that off, and said briskly, "Now, then, what was his crime? Did he owe some mutual aid society six-and-four-pence?"

"That's right," said Reynolds, sullenly, "throw every thing on the Union. If we knew who it was, he'd lie by the side of this one in less than a minute, and, happen, not get up again so soon." A growl of assent confirmed the speaker's words. Cheetham interposed and drew Amboyne aside, and began to tell him who the man was and what the dispute; but Amboyne cut the latter explanation short. "What," said he, "is this the carver whose work I saw up at Mr. Carden's?"

"This is the very man, no doubt."

"Why, he's a sculptor: Praxiteles in wood. A fine choice they have made for their gunpowder, a workman that did honor to the town."

A faint flush of gratified pride colored the ghastly cheek a moment.

"Doctor, shall I live to finish the bust?" said Henry, piteously.

"That and hundreds more, if you obey me. The fact is, Mr. Cheetham, this young man is not hurt, but his nerves have received a severe shock; and the sooner he is out of this place the better. Ah, there is my brougham at the gate. Come, put him into it, and I'll take him to the infirmary."

"No," said Little, "I won't go there; my mother would hear of it."

"Oh, then your mother is not to know?"

"Not for all the world! She has had trouble enough. I'll just wash my face and buy a clean shirt, and she'll never know what has happened. It would kill her. Oh, yes, it would kill her!"

The doctor eyed him with warm approval. "You are a fine young fellow. I'll see you safe through this, and help you throw dust in your mother's eyes. If you go to her with that scratched face, we are lost. Come, get into my carriage, and home with me."

"Mayn't I wash my face first? And look at my shirt: as black as a cinder."

"Wash your face, by all means: but you can button your coat over your shirt."

The coat was soon brought, and so was a pail of water and a piece of yellow soap. Little dashed his head and face into the bucket, and soon inked all the water. The explosion had filled his hair with black dust, and grimed his face and neck like a sweep's. This ablution made him clean, but did not bring back his ruddy color. He looked pale and scratched.

The men helped him officiously into the carriage, though he could have walked very well alone.

Henry asked leave to buy a clean shirt. The doctor said he would lend him one at home.

While Henry was putting it on Dr. Amboyne ordered his dog-cart instead of his brougham, and mixed some medicines. And soon Henry found himself seated in the dog-cart, with a warm cloak over him, and whisking over the stones of Hillsborough.

All this had been done so rapidly and unhesitatingly that Henry, injured and shaken as he was, had yielded passive obedience. But now he began to demur a little. "But where are we going, sir?" he asked.

"To change the air and the scene. I'll be frank with you—you are man enough to bear the truth—you have received a shock that will very likely bring on brain-fever, unless you get some sleep tonight. But you would not sleep in Hillsborough. You'd wake a dozen times in the night, trembling like an aspen leaf, and fancying you were blown up again."

"Yes, but my mother, sir! If I don't go home at seven o'clock, she'll find me out."

"If you went crazy wouldn't she find you out? Come, my young friend, trust to my experience, and to the interest this attempt to murder you, and your narrow escape, have inspired in me. When I have landed you in the Temple of Health, and just wasted a little advice on a pig-headed patient in the neighborhood (he is the squire of the place), I'll drive back to Hillsborough, and tell your mother some story or other: you and I will concoct that together as we go."

At this Henry was all obedience, and indeed thanked him, with the tears in his eyes, for his kindness to a poor stranger.

Dr. Amboyne smiled. "If you were not a stranger, you would know that saving cutlers' lives is my hobby, and one in which I am steadily resisted and defeated, especially by the cutlers themselves: why, I look upon you as a most considerate and obliging young man for indulging me in this way. If you had been a Hillsborough hand, you would insist upon a brain-fever, and a trip to the lunatic asylum, just to vex me, and hinder me of my hobby."

Henry stared. This was too eccentric for him to take it all in at once. "What!" said Dr. Amboyne, observing his amazement, "Did you never hear of Dr. Doubleface?"

"No, sir."

"Never hear of the corpulent lunatic, who goes about the city chanting, like a cuckoo, 'Put yourself in his place—put yourself in her place—in their place?'

"No, sir, I never did."

"Then such is fame. Well, never mind that just now; there's a time for every thing. Please observe that ruined house: the ancient family to whom it belongs are a remarkable example of the vicissitude of human affairs." He then told him the curious ups and downs of that family, which, at two distant periods, had held vast possessions in the county; but were now represented by the shell of one manor house, and its dovecote, the size of a modern villa. Next he showed him an obscure battlefield, and told him that story, and who were the parties engaged; and so on. Every mile furnished its legend, and Dr. Amboyne related them all so graphically that the patient's mind was literally stolen away from himself. At last, after a rapid drive of eleven miles through the pure invigorating air, they made a sudden turn, and entered a pleasant and singularly rural village: they drew up at a rustic farmhouse, clad with ivy; and Dr. Amboyne said, "This is the temple: here you can sleep as safe from gunpowder as a field-marshal born."

The farmer's daughter came out, and beamed pleasure at sight of the doctor: he got down, and told her the case, privately, and gave her precise instructions. She often interrupted the narrative with "Lawkadaisies," and other rural interjections, and simple exclamations of pity. She promised faithful compliance with his orders.

He then beckoned Henry in, and said, "This picture of health was a patient of mine once, as you are now; there's encouragement for you. I put you under her charge. Get a letter written to your mother, and I'll come back for it in half an hour. You had a headache, and were feverish, so you consulted a doctor. He advised immediate rest and change of air, and he drove you at once to this village. Write you that, and leave the rest to me. We doctors are dissembling dogs. We have still something to learn in curing diseases; but at making light of them to the dying, and other branches of amiable mendacity, we are masters."

As soon as he was gone, the comely young hostess began on her patient. "Dear heart, sir, was it really you as was blowed up with gunpowder?"

"Indeed it was, and not many hours ago. It seems like a dream."

"Well, now, who'd think that, to look at you? Why, you are none the worse for, by a scratch or two, and dear heart, I've seen a young chap bring as bad home, from courting, in these parts; and wed the lass as marked him—within the year."

"Oh, it is not the scratches; but feel my hand, how it trembles. And it used to be as firm as a rock; for I never drink."

"So it do, I declare. Why, you do tremble all over; and no wonder, poor soul. Come you in this minut, and sit down a bit by the fire, while I go and make the room ready for you."

But, as soon as he was seated by the fire, the current began to flow again. "Well, I never liked Hillsborough folk much—poor, mean-visaged tykes they be—but now I do hate 'em. What, blow up a decent young man like you, and a well-favored, and hair like jet, and eyes in your head like sloes! But that's their ground of spite, I warrant me; the nasty, ugly, dirty dogs. Well, you may just snap your fingers at 'em all now. They don't come out so far as this; and, if they did, stouter men grows in this village than any in Hillsborough: and I've only to hold up my finger, for as little as I be, and they'd all be well ducked in father's horsepond, and then flogged home again with a good cart-whip well laid on. And, another thing, whatever we do, Squire, he will make it good in law: he is gentle, and we are simple; but our folk and his has stood by each other this hundred year and more. But, la, I run on so, and you was to write a letter again the doctor came back. I'll fetch you some paper this minut."

She brought him writing materials, and stood by him with this apology, "If 'twas to your sweetheart I'd be off. But 'tis to your mother." (With a side glance), "She have been a handsome woman in her day, I'll go bail."

"She is as beautiful as ever in my eyes," said Henry, tenderly. "And, oh, heaven! give me the sense to write to her without frightening her."

"Then I won't hinder you no more with my chat," said his hostess, with kindly good humor, and slipped away upstairs. She lighted a great wood fire in the bedroom, and laid the bed and the blankets all round it, and opened the window, and took the homespun linen sheets out of a press, and made the room very tidy. Then she went down again, and the moment Henry saw her, he said "I feel your kindness, miss, but I don't know your name, nor where in the world I am." His hostess smiled. "That is no secret. I'm Martha Dence—at your service: and this is Cairnhope town."

"Cairnhope!" cried Henry, and started back, so that his wooden chair made a loud creak upon the stones of the farmer's kitchen.

Martha Dence stared, but said nothing; for almost at that moment the doctor returned, all in a hurry, for the letter.

Henry begged him to look at it, and see if it would do.

The doctor read it. "Hum!" said he, "it is a very pretty, filial letter, and increases my interest in you; give me your hand: there. Well, it won't do: too shaky. If your mother once sees this, I may talk till doomsday, she'll not believe a word. You must put off writing till to-morrow night. Now give me her address, for I really must get home."

"She lives on the second floor, No. 13 Chettle Street."

"Her name?"

"Sir, if you ask for the lady that lodges on the second floor, you will be sure to see her."

Dr. Amboyne looked a little surprised, and not very well pleased, at what seemed a want of confidence. But he was a man singularly cautious and candid in forming his judgments; so he forbore all comment, and delivered his final instructions. "Here is a bottle containing only a few drops of faba Ignatii in water, it is an innocent medicine, and has sometimes a magical effect in soothing the mind and nerves. A table-spoonful three times a day. And THIS is a sedative, which you can take if you find yourself quite unable to sleep. But I wouldn't have recourse to it unnecessarily; for these sedatives are uncertain in their operation; and, when a man is turned upside down, as you have been, they sometimes excite. Have a faint light in your bedroom. Tie a cord to the bell-rope, and hold it in your hand all night. Fix your mind on that cord, and keep thinking, 'This is to remind me that I am eleven miles from Hillsborough, in a peaceful village, safe from all harm.' To-morrow, walk up to the top of Cairnhope Peak, and inhale the glorious breeze, and look over four counties. Write to your mother at night, and, meantime, I'll do my best to relieve her anxiety. Good-by."

Memory sometimes acts like an old flint-gun: it hangs fire, yet ends by going off. While Dr. Amboyne was driving home, the swarthy, but handsome, features of the workman he had befriended seemed to enter his mind more deeply than during the hurry, and he said to himself, "Jet black hair; great black eyes; and olive skin; they are rare in these parts; and, somehow, they remind me a little of HER."

Then his mind went back, in a moment, over many years, to the days when he was stalwart, but not unwieldy, and loved a dark but peerless beauty, loved her deeply, and told his love, and was esteemed and pitied, but another was beloved.

And so sad, yet absorbing, was the retrospect of his love, his sorrow, and her own unhappy lot, that it blotted out of his mind, for a time, the very youth whose features and complexion had launched him into the past.

But the moment his horse's feet rang on the stones, this burly philosopher shook off the past, and set himself to recover lost time. He drove rapidly to several patients, and, at six o'clock, was at 13 Chettle Street, and asked for the lady on the second floor, "Yes, sir: she is at home," was the reply. "But I don't know; she lives very retired. She hasn't received any visits since they came. However, they rent the whole floor, and the sitting-room fronts you."

Dr. Amboyne mounted the stair and knocked at the door. A soft and mellow voice bade him enter. He went in, and a tall lady in black, with plain linen collar and wristbands, rose to receive him. They confronted each other. Time and trouble had left their trace, but there were the glorious eyes, and jet black hair, and the face, worn and pensive, but still beautiful. It was the woman he had loved, the only one.

"Mrs. Little!" said he, in an indescribable tone.

"Dr. Amboyne!"

For a few moments he forgot the task he had undertaken; and could only express his astonishment and pleasure at seeing her once more.

Then he remembered why he was there; and the office he had undertaken so lightly alarmed him now.

His first instinct was to gain time. Accordingly, he began to chide her gently for having resided in the town and concealed it from him; then, seeing her confused and uncomfortable at that reproach, and in the mood to be relieved by any change of topic, he glided off, with no little address, as follows:—"Observe the consequences: here have I been most despotically rusticating a youth who turns out to be your son."

"My son! is there any thing the matter with my son? Oh, Dr. Amboyne!"

"He must have been out of sorts, you know, or he would not have consulted me," replied the doctor, affecting candor.

"Consult! Why, what has happened? He was quite well when he left me this morning."

"I doubt that. He complained of headache and fever. But I soon found his MIND was worried. A misunderstanding with the trades! I was very much pleased with his face and manner; my carriage was at the door; his pulse was high, but there was nothing that country air and quiet will not restore. So I just drove him away, and landed him in a farm-house."

Mrs. Little's brow flushed at this. She was angry. But, in a nature so gentle as hers, anger soon gave way. She turned a glance of tearful and eloquent reproach on Dr. Amboyne. "The first time we have ever been separated since he was born," said she, with a sigh.

Dr. Amboyne's preconceived plan broke down that moment. He said, hurriedly,

"Take my carriage, and drive to him. Better do that than torment yourself."

"Where is he?" asked the widow, brightening up at the proposal.

"At Cairnhope."

At this word, Mrs. Little's face betrayed a series of emotions: first confusion, then astonishment, and at last a sort of superstitious alarm. "At Cairnhope?" she faltered at last, "My son at Cairnhope?"

"Pray do not torment yourself with fancies," said the doctor. "All this is the merest accident—the simplest thing in the world. I cured Patty Dence of diphtheria, when it decimated the village. She and her family are grateful; the air of Cairnhope has a magic effect on people who live in smoke, and Martha and Jael let me send them out an invalid now and then to be reinvigorated. I took this young man there, not knowing who he was. Go to him, if you like. But, frankly, as his physician, I would rather you did not. Never do a wise thing by halves. He ought to be entirely separated from all his cares, even from yourself (who are doubtless one of them), for five or six days. He needs no other medicine but that and the fine air of Cairnhope."

"Then somebody must see him every day, and tell me. Oh! Dr. Amboyne, this is the beginning: what will the end be? I am miserable."

"My man shall ride there every day, and see him, and bring you back a letter from him."

"Your man!" said Mrs. Little, a little haughtily.

Dr. Amboyne met her glance. "If there was any ground for alarm, should I not go myself every day?" said he, gravely, and even tenderly.

"Forgive me," said the widow, and gave him her hand with a sweet and womanly gesture.

The main difficulty was now got over; and Dr. Amboyne was careful not to say too much, for he knew that his tongue moved among pitfalls.

As Dr. Amboyne descended the stairs, the landlady held a door ajar, and peeped at him, according to a custom of such delicate-minded females as can neither restrain their curiosity nor indulge it openly. Dr. Amboyne beckoned to her, and asked for a private interview. This was promptly accorded.

"Would ten guineas be of any service to you, madam?"

"Eh, dear, that it would, sir. Why, my rent is just coming due."

Under these circumstances, the bargain was soon struck. Not a syllable about the explosion at Cheetham's was to reach the second floor lodger's ears, and no Hillsborough journal was to mount the stairs until the young man's return. If inquired for, they were to be reported all sold out, and a London journal purchased instead.

Having secured a keen and watchful ally in this good woman, who, to do her justice, showed a hearty determination to earn her ten guineas, Dr. Amboyne returned home, his own philosophic pulse beating faster than it had done for some years.

He had left Mrs. Little grateful, and, apparently, in good spirits; but, ere he had been gone an hour, the bare separation from her son overpowered her, and a host of vague misgivings tortured her, and she slept but little that night. By noon next day she was thoroughly miserable; but Dr. Amboyne's man rode up to the door in the afternoon with a cheerful line from Henry.

"All right, dear mother. Better already. Letter by post.

"Henry."

She detained the man, and made up a packet of things for Cairnhope, and gave him five shillings to be sure and take them.

This was followed by a correspondence, a portion of which will suffice to eke out the narrative.

"DEAREST MOTHER,—I slept ill last night, and got up aching from head to foot, as if I had been well hided. But they sent me to the top of Cairnhope Peak, and, what with the keen air and the glorious view, I came home and ate like a hog. That pleased Martha Dence, and she kept putting me slices off her own plate, till I had to cry quarter. As soon as I have addressed this letter, I'm off to bed, for it is all I can do not to fall asleep sitting.

"I am safe to be all right to-morrow, so pray don't fret. I am, dear mother," etc., etc.

"DEAREST MOTHER,—I hope you are not fretting about me. Dr. Amboyne promised to stop all that. But do write, and say you are not fretting and fancying all manner of things at my cutting away so suddenly. It was the doctor's doing. And, mother, I shall not stay long away from you, for I slept twelve hours at a stretch last night, and now I'm another man. But really, I think the air of that Cairnhope Peak would cure a fellow at his last gasp.

"Thank you for the linen, and the brushes, and things. But you are not the sort to forget anything a fellow might want," etc.

"No, my darling son. Be in no hurry to leave Cairnhope. Of course, love, I was alarmed at first; for I know doctors make the best of every thing; and then the first parting!—that is always a sorrowful thing. But, now you are there, I beg you will stay till you are quite recovered. Your letters are a delight, and one I could not have, and you as well, you know.

"Since you are at Cairnhope—how strange that seems—pray go and see the old church, where your forefathers are buried. There are curious inscriptions, and some brasses nobody could decipher when I was a girl; but perhaps you might, you are so clever. Your grandfather's monument is in the chancel: I want you to see it. Am I getting very old, that my heart turns back to these scenes of my youth?

"P.S.—Who is this Martha Dence?"

"DEAR MOTHER,—Martha Dence is the farmer's daughter I lodge with. She is not so pretty as her sister Jael that is with Miss Carden; but she is a comely girl, and as good as gold, and bespoke by the butcher. And her putting slices from her plate to mine is a village custom, I find.

"Mother, the people here are wonderfully good and simple. First of all, there's farmer Dence, with his high bald head, like a patriarch of old; and he sits and beams with benevolence, but does not talk much. But he lets me see I can stay with him six years, if I choose. Then, there's Martha, hospitality itself, and ready to fly at my enemies like a mastiff. She is a little hot in the temper, feathers up in a moment; but, at a soft word, they go down again as quick. Then, there's the village blacksmith. I call him 'The gentle giant.' He is a tremendous fellow in height, and size, and sinew; but such a kind, sweet-tempered chap. He could knock down an ox, yet he wouldn't harm a fly. I am his idol: I sauntered in to his smithy, and forged him one or two knives; and of course he had never seen the hammer used with that nicety; but instead of hating me, as the bad forgers in Hillsborough do, he regularly worships me, and comes blushing up to the farm-house after hours, to ask after me and get a word with me. He is the best whistler in the parish, and sometimes we march down the village at night, arm-in-arm, whistling a duet. This charms the natives so that we could take the whole village out at our heels, and put them down in another parish. But the droll thing is, they will not take me for what I am. My gentle giant would say 'Sir' till I pretended to be affronted; the women and girls will bob me courtesies, and the men and white headed boys will take off their hats and pull their front hair to me. If a skilled workman wants to burst with vanity, let him settle in Cairnhope."

[EXTRACT]

"Martha Dence and I have had words, and what do you think it was about? I happened to let out my opinion of Mr. Raby. Mother, it was like setting a match to a barrel of gunpowder. She turned as red as fire, and said, 'Who be you that speaks against Raby to Dence?'

"I tried to pacify her, but it was no use. 'Don't speak to me,' said she. 'I thought better of you. You and I are out.' I bowed before the storm, and, to give her time to cool, I obeyed your wishes, and walked to Cairnhope old church. What a curious place! But I could not get in; and, on my return, I found Mr. Raby keeps the key. Now, you can't do a thing here, or say a word, but what it is known all over the village. So Martha Dence meets me at the door, and says, very stiffly, she thought I might have told her I wanted to see the old church. I pulled a long, penitent face, and said, 'Yes; but unfortunately, I was out of her good books, and had orders not to speak to her.' 'Nay,' says she, 'life is too short for long quarrels. You are a stranger, and knew no better.' Then she told me to wait five minutes while she put on her bonnet, as she calls it. Well, I waited the five and-forty minutes, and she put on her bonnet, and so many other smart things, that we couldn't possibly walk straight up to the old church. We had to go round by the butcher's shop, and order half a pound of suet; no less. 'And bring it yourself, this evening,' said I, 'or it might get lost on the road.' Says the butcher, 'Well, sir, that is the first piece of friendly advice any good Christian has bestowed—' But I heard no more, owing to Martha chasing me out of the shop.

"To reach the old church we had to pass the old ruffian's door. Martha went in; I sauntered on, and she soon came after me, with the key in her hand. 'But,' said she, 'he told me if my name hadn't been Dence he wouldn't trust me with it, though I went on my bended knees.'

"We opened the church-door, and I spent an hour inside, examining and copying inscriptions for you. But, when I came to take up a loose brass, to try and decipher it, Martha came screaming at me, 'Oh, put it down! put it down! I pledged my word to Squire you should not touch them brasses.' What could I do, mother? The poor girl was in an agony. This old ruffian has, somehow, bewitched her, and her father too, into a sort of superstitious devotion that I can't help respecting, unreasonable as it is. So I dropped the brass, and took to reflecting. And I give you my thoughts.

"What a pity and a shame that a building of this size should lie idle! If it was mine I would carefully remove all the monuments, and the dead bones, et cetera, to the new church, and turn this old building into a factory, or a set of granaries, or something useful. It is as great a sin to waste bricks and mortar as it is bread," etc.

"MY DEAR HARRY,—Your dear sprightly letters delight me, and reconcile me to the separation; for I see that your health is improving every day, by your gayety; and this makes me happy, though I can not quite be gay.

"Your last letter was very amusing, yet, somehow, it set me thinking, long and sadly; and some gentle remarks from Dr. Amboyne (he called yesterday) have also turned my mind the same way. Time has softened the terrible blow that estranged my brother and myself, and I begin to ask myself, was my own conduct perfect? was my brother's quite without excuse? I may have seen but one side, and been too hasty in judging him. At all events, I would have you, who are a man, think for yourself, and not rush into too harsh a view of that unhappy quarrel. Dearest, family quarrels are family misfortunes: why should they go down to another generation? You frighten me, when you wonder that Nathan and his family (I had forgotten his name was Dence) are attached to Mr. Raby. Why, with all his faults, my brother is a chivalrous, high-minded gentleman; his word is his bond, and he never deserts a friend, however humble; and I have heard our dear father say that, for many generations, uncommon acts of kindness had passed between that family of yeomen and the knights and squires of Raby.

"And now, dear, I am going to be very foolish. But, if these Dences are as great favorites with him as they were with my father, she could easily get you into the house some day, when he is out hunting; and I do want you to see one thing more before you come back from Cairnhope—your mother's picture. It hangs, or used to hang, in the great dining-room, nearly opposite the fire-place.

"I blush at my childishness, but I SHOULD like my child to see what his mother was when she brought him into the world, that sad world in which he has been her only joy and consolation.

"P. S.—What an idea! Turn that dear old church into a factory! But you are a young man of the day. And a wonderful day it is; I can not quite keep up with it."

"DEAR MOTHER,—I have been there. Mr. Raby is a borough magistrate, as well as a county justice; and was in Hillsborough all day to-day. Martha Dence took me to Raby Hall, and her name was a passport. When I got to the door, I felt as if something pulled me, and said, 'It's an enemy's house; don't go in.' I wish I had obeyed the warning; but I did not.

"Well, I have seen your portrait. It is lovely, it surpasses any woman I ever saw. And it must have been your image, for it is very like you now, only in the bloom of your youth.

"And now, dear mother, having done something for you, quite against my own judgment, and my feelings too, please do something for me. Promise me never to mention Mr. Raby's name to me again, by letter, or by word of mouth either. He is not a gentleman: he is not a man; he is a mean, spiteful, cowardly cur. I'll keep out of his way, if I can; but if he gets in mine, I shall give him a devilish good hiding, then and there, and I'll tell HIM the reason why; and I will not tell YOU.

"Dear mother, I did intend to stay till Saturday, but, after this, I shall come back to you to-morrow. My own sweet dove of a mammy; who but a beast could hurt or affront you?

"So no more letters from your dutiful and affectionate son,

"Harry."

Next day young Little took leave of his friends in Cairnhope, with a promise to come over some Sunday, and see them all. He borrowed a hooked stick of his devotee, the blacksmith, and walked off with his little bundle over his shoulder, in high health and spirits, and ripe for any thing.

Some successful men are so stout-hearted, their minds seem never to flinch. Others are elastic; they give way, and appear crushed; but, let the immediate pressure be removed, they fly back again, and their enemy finds he has not gained an inch. Henry's was of this sort; and, as he swung along through the clear brisk air, the world seemed his football once more.

This same morning Jael Dence was to go to Cairnhope, at her own request.

She packed her box, and corded it, and brought it down herself, and put it in the passage, and the carrier was to call for it at one. As for herself, four miles of omnibus, and the other seven on foot, was child's play to her, whose body was as lusty and active as her heart was tender and clinging.

She came in to the drawing-room, with her bonnet and shawl on, and the tear in her eye, to bid Miss Carden good-bye. Two male friends would have parted in five minutes; but this pair were a wonderful time separating, and still there was always something to say, that kept Grace detaining, or Jael lingering; and, when she had been going, going, going, for more than half an hour, all of a sudden she cried, out, "Oh! There he is!" and flushed all over.

"Who?" asked Grace, eagerly.

"The dark young man. He is at the door now, miss. And me going away," she faltered.

"Well then, why go till he has paid his visit? Sit down. You needn't take off your bonnet."

Miss Carden then settled herself, took up her work, and prepared to receive her preceptor as he deserved, an intention she conveyed to Jael by a glance, just as Henry entered blooming with exercise and the keen air, and looking extremely handsome and happy.

His reception was a chilling bow from Miss Carden, and from Jael a cheek blushing with pleasure at the bare sight of him, but an earnest look of mild reproach. It seemed cruel of him to stay away so long, and then come just as she was going.

This reception surprised Henry, and disappointed him; however he constrained himself, and said politely, but rather coldly, that some unpleasant circumstances had kept him away; but he hoped now to keep his time better.

"Oh, pray consult your own convenience entirely," said Miss Carden. "Come when you have nothing better to do; that is the understanding."

"I should be always coming, at that rate."

Grace took no notice. "Would you like to see how I look with my one eyebrow?" said she. "Jael, please fetch it."

While Jael was gone for the bust, Henry took a humbler tone, and in a low voice began to excuse his absence; and I think he would have told the real truth, if he had been encouraged a little; but he was met with a cold and withering assurance that it was a matter of no consequence. Henry thought this unfair, and, knowing in his own heart it was ungrateful, he rebelled. He bit his lip, sat down as gloomy as the grave, and resumed his work, silent and sullen.

As for Jael, she brought in the bust, and then sat down with her bonnet on, quaking; for she felt sure that, in such a dismal dearth of conversation, Miss Carden would be certain to turn round very soon, and say, "Well, Jael, you can go now."

But this Quaker's meeting was interrupted by a doctor looking in to prescribe for Miss Carden's cold. The said cold was imperceptible to vulgar eyes, but Grace had detected it, and had written to her friend, Dr. Amboyne, to come and make it as imperceptible to herself as to the spectator.

In rolled the doctor, and was not a little startled at sight of Little.

"Hallo!" cried be. "What, cured already? Cairnhope forever!" He then proceeded to feel his pulse instead of Miss Carden's, and inspect his eye, at which Grace Carden stared.

"What, is he unwell?"

"Why, a man does not get blown up with gunpowder without some little disturbance of the system."

"Blown up with gunpowder! What DO you mean?"

"What, have you not heard about it? Don't you read the newspapers?"

"No; never."

"Merciful powers! But has he not told you?"

"No; he tells us nothing."

"Then I'll tell you, it is of no use your making faces at me. There is no earthly reason why she should be kept in the dark. These Hillsborough trades want to drive this young man out of town: why—is too long and intricate for you to follow. He resists this tyranny, gently, but firmly."

"I'd resist it furiously," said Grace.

"The consequence is, they wrote him several threatening letters; and, at last, some caitiff put gunpowder into his forge; it exploded, and blew him out of a second-floor window."

"Oh! oh!" screamed Grace Carden and Jael; and by one womanly impulse they both put their hands before their faces, as if to shut out the horrible picture.

"What is that for?" said the doctor. "You see he is all right now. But, I promise you, he cut a very different figure when I saw him directly afterward; he was scorched as black as a coal—"

"Oh, doctor, don't; pray don't. Oh, sir, why did you not tell me?"

"And his face bleeding," continued the merciless doctor.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" And the sweet eyes were turned, all swimming in water upon Henry, with a look of angelic pity.

"His nerves were terribly shaken, but there were no bones broken. I said to myself, 'He must sleep or go mad, and he will not sleep in the town that has blown him up.' I just drove the patient off to peace and pure air, and confided him to one of the best creatures in England—Martha Dence."

Jael uttered an exclamation of wonder, which drew attention to her and her glowing cheeks.

"Oh yes, Miss Jael," said Henry, "I was going to tell you. I have been a fortnight with your people, and, if I live a hundred years, I shall not forget their goodness to me. God bless them."

"'Twas the least they could do," said Jael, softly.

"What a pity you are going out. I should have liked to talk to you about your father, and Martha, and George the blacksmith. Doctor, who would live in a town after Cairnhope?"

Jael's fingers trembled at her bonnet-strings, and, turning a look of piteous supplication on Grace, she faltered out, "If you please, miss, might I stay over to-day?"

"Of course. And then he will tell you all about your people, and that will do just as well as you going to see them; and better."

Off came Jael's bonnet with wonderful celerity.

"Get the whole story out of him," said Dr. Amboyne. "It is well worth your attention. As for me, I must go as soon as I have prescribed for you. What is the matter?"

"The matter is that there's nothing the matter; prescribe for that. And that I'm a goose—prescribe for that—and don't read the newspapers; prescribe for that."

"Well, then, I prescribe the Hillsborough Liberal. It has drawn a strong picture of this outrage, and shown its teeth to the Trades. And, if I might advise a lady of your age and experience, I would say, in future always read the newspapers. They are, compared with books, what machinery is compared with hand-labor. But, in this one instance, go to the fountain-head, and ask Mr. Henry Little there, to tell you his own tragedy, with all the ins and outs."

"Ah! if he would," said Grace, turning her eyes on Henry. "But he is not so communicative to poor us. Is he, Jael?"

"No, miss."

"He never even told us his name. Did he, Jael?"

"No, miss. He is very close."

"Open him then," said the doctor. "Come, come, there are a pair of you; and evidently disposed to act in concert; if you can not turn a man inside out, I disown you; you are a discredit to your sex." He then shook hands with all three of them, and rolled away.

"Jael," said Miss Carden, "oblige me by ringing the bell."

A servant entered.

"Not at home to any human creature," said the young lady.

The servant retired.

"And, if they see me at the window, all the worse—for THEM. Now, Mr. Little?"

Henry complied, and told the whole story, with the exception of the threat to his sweetheart; and passed two delightful hours. Who is so devoid of egotism as not to like to tell his own adventures to sympathizing beauty? He told it in detail, and even read them portions of the threatening letters; and, as he told it, their lovely eyes seemed on fire; and they were red, and pale, by turns. He told it, like a man, with dignity, and sobriety, and never used an epithet. It was Miss Carden who supplied the "Monsters!" "Villains!" "Cowards!" "Wretches!" at due intervals. And once she started from her seat, and said she could not bear it. "I see through it all," she cried. "That Jobson is a hypocrite; and he is at the bottom of it all. I hate him; and Parkin worse. As for the assassin, I hope God, who saw him, will punish him. What I want to do is to kill Jobson and Parkin, one after another; kill them—kill them—kill them—I'll tell papa."

As for Jael, she could not speak her mind, but she panted heavily, and her fingers worked convulsively, and clutched themselves very tight at last.

When he had done his narrative, he said sadly, "I despise these fellows as much as you do; but they are too many for me. I am obliged to leave Hillsborough."

"What, let the wretches drive you away? I would never do that—if I was a man."

"What would you do, then?" asked Henry, his eye sparkling.

"Do? Why fight them; and beat them; and kill them, it is not as if they were brave men. They are only cunning cowards. I'd meet cunning with cunning. I'd outwit them somehow. I'd change my lodging every week, and live at little inns and places. I'd lock up every thing I used, as well as the rooms. I'd consult wiser heads, the editor of the Liberal, and the Head of the police. I'd carry fire-arms, and have a bodyguard, night and day; but they should never say they had frightened me out of Hillsborough—if I was a man."

"You are all right," cried Henry. "I'll do all you advise me, and I won't be driven out of this place. I love it. I'll live in it or I'll die in it. I'll never leave it."

This was almost the last word that passed this delightful afternoon, when the sense of her own past injustice, the thrilling nature of the story told by the very sufferer, and, above all, the presence and the undisguised emotion of another sympathizing woman, thawed Grace Carden's reserve, warmed her courage, and carried her, quite unconsciously, over certain conventional bounds, which had, hitherto, been strictly observed in her intercourse with this young workman.

Henry himself felt that this day was an era in his love. When he left the door, he seemed to tread on air. He walked to the first cab-stand, took a conveyance to his mother's door, and soon he was locked in her arms.

She had been fretting for hours at his delay; but she never let him know it. The whole place was full of preparations for his comfort, and certain delicacies he liked were laid out on a little side board, and the tea-things set, including the silver teapot, used now on high occasions only.

She had a thousand questions to ask, and he to answer. And, while he ate, the poor woman leaned back, and enjoyed seeing him eat; and, while he talked, her fine eyes beamed with maternal joy. She reveled deliciously in his health, his beauty, and his safe return to her; and thought, with gentle complacency, they would soon return to London together.

In the morning, she got out a large, light box, and said. "Harry, dear, I suppose I may as well begin to pack up. You know I take longer than you do."

Henry blushed. "Pack up?" said he, hesitatingly. "We are not going away."

"Not going away, love? Why you agreed to leave, on account of those dreadful Unions."

"Oh, I was ill, and nervous, and out of spirits; but the air of Cairnhope has made a man of me. I shall stay here, and make our fortune."

"But the air of Cairnhope has not made you friends with the unions." She seemed to reflect a moment, then asked him at what time he had left Cairnhope.

"Eleven o'clock."

"Ah! And whom did you visit before you came to me?"

"You question me like a child, mother."

"Forgive me, dear. I will answer my own question. You called on some one who gave you bad advice."

"Oh, did I?"

"On some woman."

"Say, a lady"

"What does it matter to me?" cried Mrs. Little, wildly. "They are all my enemies. And this one is yours. It is a woman, who is not your mother, for she thinks more of herself than of you."



CHAPTER VII.

Henry had now to choose between his mother's advice, and Miss Carden's commands; and this made him rather sullen and irritable. He was glad to get out of his mother's house, and went direct to the works. Bayne welcomed him warmly, and, after some friendly congratulations and inquiries, pulled out two files of journals, and told him he had promised to introduce him to the editor of the Liberal. He then begged Henry to wait in the office, and read the files—he would not be gone many minutes.

The Constitutional gave a dry narrative of the outrage, and mourned the frequency of such incidents.

The Liberal gave a dramatic narrative, and said the miscreant must have lowered himself by a rope from the parapet, and passed the powder inside without entering. "He periled his life to perpetrate this crime; and he also risked penal servitude for ten years. That he was not deterred by the double risk, proves the influence of some powerful motive; and that motive must have been either a personal feud of a very virulent kind, or else trade fanaticism. From this alternative there is no escape."

Next day, both journals recorded a trade-meeting at "The Rising Sun." Delegates from the Edge-Tool Forgers' Union, and the Edge-Tool Handlers' Union, and some other representatives of Hillsborough Unions, were present, and passed a resolution repudiating, with disgust, the outrage that had been recently committed, and directed their secretaries to offer a reward of twenty pounds, the same to be paid to any person who would give such information as should lead to the discovery of the culprit.

On this the Constitutional commented as follows:—"Although we never for a moment suspected these respectable Unions of conniving at this enormity, yet it is satisfactory to find them not merely passive spectators, but exerting their energy, and spending their money, in a praiseworthy endeavor to discover and punish the offenders."

Henry laid down the paper, and his heart felt very warm to Jobson and Parkin. "Come," said he, "I am glad of that. They are not half a bad sort, those two, after all."

Then he took up the Liberal, and being young and generous, felt disgusted at its comment:

"This appears to be creditable to the two Unions in question. But, unfortunately, long experience proves that these small rewards never lead to any discovery. They fail so invariably, that the Unions do not risk a shilling by proffering them. In dramatic entertainments the tragedy is followed by a farce: and so it is with these sanguinary crimes in Hillsborough; they are always followed by a repudiation, and offers of a trumpery reward quite disproportionate to the offense, and the only result of the farce is to divert attention from the true line of inquiry as to who enacted the tragedy. The mind craves novelty, and perhaps these delegates will indulge that desire by informing us for once, what was the personal and Corsican feud which led—as they would have us believe—to this outrage; and will, at the same time, explain to us why these outrages with gunpowder have never, either in this or in any preceding case, attacked any but non-union men."

When Henry had read thus far, the writer of the leader entered the room with Mr. Bayne.

A gentleman not above the middle height, but with a remarkable chest, both broad and deep; yet he was not unwieldy, like Dr. Amboyne, but clean-built, and symmetrical. An agreeable face, with one remarkable feature, a mouth full of iron resolution, and a slight humorous dimple at the corners.

He shook hands with Henry, and said, "I wish to ask you a question or two, in the way of business: but first let me express my sympathy, as a man, and my detestation of the ruffians that have so nearly victimized you."

This was very hearty, and Henry thanked him with some emotion. "But, sir," said he, "if I am to reply to your questions, you must promise me you will never publish my name."

"It is on account of his mother," whispered Bayne.

"Yes, sir. It was her misfortune to lose my father by a violent death, and of course you may imagine—"

"Say no more," said Mr. Holdfast: "your name shall not appear. And—let me see—does your mother know you work here?"

"Yes, she does."

"Then we had better keep Cheetham's name out as well."

"Oh, thank you, sir, thank you. Now I'll answer any questions you like."

"Well, then, I hear this outrage was preceded by several letters. Could I see them?"

"Certainly. I carry mine always in my pocket, for fear my poor mother should see them: and, Mr. Bayne, you have got Cheetham's."

In another minute the whole correspondence was on the table, and Mr. Holdfast laid it out in order, like a map, and went through it, taking notes. "What a comedy," said he. "All but the denouement. Now, Mr. Bayne, can any other manufacturers show me a correspondence of this kind?"

"Is there one that can't? There isn't a power-wheel, or a water-wheel, within eight miles of Hillsborough, that can't show you just such a correspondence as this; and rattening, or worse, at the tail of it."

Mr. Holdfast's eye sparkled like a diamond. "I'll make the round," said he. "And, Mr. Little, perhaps you will be kind enough to go with me, and let me question you, on the road. I have no sub-editor; no staff; I carry the whole journal on my head. Every day is a hard race between Time and me, and not a minute to spare."

Mr. Cheetham was expected at the works this afternoon: so Henry, on leaving Mr. Holdfast, returned to them, and found him there with Bayne, looking, disconsolately, over a dozen orders for carving-tools.

"Glad to see you again, my lad," said Cheetham. "Why, you look all the better."

"I'm none the worse, sir."

"Come to take your balance and leave me?" This was said half plaintively, half crossly.

"If you wish it, sir."

"Not I. How is it to be?"

"Well, sir, I say to you what you said to me the other day, Stick to me, and I'll stick to you."

"I'll stick to you."

Bayne held up his hands piteously to them both.

"What sir?" faltered he, turning to Cheetham, "after all your experience!" then to Henry, "What, fight the Trades, after the lesson they have given you?"

"I'll fight them all the more for that," said Henry, grinding his teeth; "fight them till all is blue."

"So will I. That for the Trades!"

"Heaven help you both!" groaned Bayne, and looked the picture of despair.

"You promised me shutters, with a detonator, sir."

"Ay, but you objected."

"That was before they blew me up."

"Just so. Shutters shall be hung to-morrow; and the detonators I'll fix myself."

"Thank you, sir. Would you mind engaging a watchman?"

"Hum? Not—if you will share the expense."

"I'll pay one-third."

"Why should I pay two thirds? It is not like shutters and Bramah locks: they are property. However, he'll be good against rattening; and you have lost a fortnight, and there are a good many orders. Give me a good day's work, and we won't quarrel over the watchman." He then inquired, rather nervously, whether there was anything more.

"No, sir: we are agreed. And I'll give you good work, and full time."

The die was cast, and now he must go home and face his mother. For the first time this many years he was half afraid to go near her. He dreaded remonstrances and tears: tears that he could not dry; remonstrances that would worry him, but could not shake him.

This young man, who had just screwed his physical courage up to defy the redoubtable Unions had a fit of moral cowardice, and was so reluctant to encounter the gentlest woman in England, that he dined at a chop-house, and then sauntered into a music hall, and did not get home till past ten, meaning to say a few kind, hurried words, then yawn, and slip to bed.

But, meantime, Mrs. Little's mind had not been idle. She had long divined a young rival in her son's heart, and many a little pang of jealousy had traversed her own. This morning, with a quickness which may seem remarkable to those who have not observed the watchful keenness of maternal love, she had seen that her rival had worked upon Henry to resign his declared intention of leaving Hillsborough. Then she felt her way, and, in a moment, she had found the younger woman was the stronger.

She assumed as a matter of course, that this girl was in love with Henry (who would not be in love with him?), and had hung, weeping, round his neck, when he called from Cairnhope to bid her farewell, and had made him promise to stay. This was the mother's theory; wrong, but rational.

Then came the question, What should she do? Fight against youth and nature? Fight, unlikely to succeed, sure to irritate and disturb. Risk any of that rare affection and confidence her son had always given her?

While her thoughts ran this way, seven o'clock came, and no Henry. Eight o'clock, and no Henry. "Ah!" thought the mother, "that one word of mine has had this effect already."

She prepared an exquisite little supper. She made her own toilet with particular care; and, when all was ready, she sat down and comforted herself by reading his letters, and comparing his love with the cavalier behavior of so many sons in this island, the most unfilial country in Europe.

At half past ten Henry came up the stairs, not with the usual light elastic tread, but with slow, hesitating foot. Her quick ear caught that too, and her gentle bosom yearned. What, had she frightened him? He opened the door, and she rose to receive him all smiles. "You are rather late, dear," she said; "but all the better. It has given me an excuse for reading your dear letters all over again; and I have a thousand questions to ask you about Cairnhope. But sit down first, and have your supper."

Henry brightened up, and ate a good supper, and his mother plied him with questions, all about Cairnhope.

Here was an unexpected relief. Henry took a superficial view of all this. Sharp young men of twenty-four understand a great many things; but they can't quite measure their mothers yet.

Henry was selfishly pleased, but not ungrateful, and they passed a pleasant and affectionate time: and, as for leaving Hillsborough, the topic was avoided by tacit consent.

Next morning, after this easy victory, Henry took a cab and got to "Woodbine Villa" by a circuitous route. His heart beat high as he entered the room where Grace was seated. After the extraordinary warmth and familiarity she had shown him at the last interview, he took for granted he had made a lasting progress in her regard.

But she received him with a cold and distant manner, that quite benumbed him. Grace Carden's face and manner were so much more expressive than other people's, that you would never mistake or doubt the mood she was in; and this morning she was freezing.

The fact is, Miss Carden had been tormenting herself: and when beauty suffers, it is very apt to make others suffer as well.

"I am glad you are come, Mr. Little," said she, "for I have been taking myself to task ever since, and I blame myself very much for some things I said. In the first place, it was not for me" (here the fair speaker colored up to the temples) "to interfere in your affairs at all: and then, if I must take such a liberty, I ought to have advised you sensibly, and for your good. I have been asking people, and they all tell me it is madness for one person to fight against these Unions. Everybody gets crushed. So now let me hope you will carry out your wise intention, and leave Hillsborough; and then my conscience will be at ease."

Every word fell like an icicle on her hearer's heart. To please this cold, changeful creature, he had settled to defy the unchangeable Unions, and had been ready to resist his mother, and slight her immortal and unchanging love.

"You don't answer me, sir!" said Miss Carden, with an air of lofty surprise.

"I answered you yesterday," said he sullenly. "A man can't chop and change like a weathercock."

"But it is not changing, it's only going back to your own intention. You know you were going to leave Hillsborough, before I talked all that nonsense. Your story had set me on fire, and that's my only excuse. Well, now, the same person takes the liberty to give you wise and considerate advice, instead of hot, and hasty, romantic nonsense. Which ought you to respect most—folly or reason—from the same lips?"

Henry seemed to reflect. "That sounds reasonable," said he: "but, when you advised me not to show the white feather, you spoke your heart; now, you are only talking from your head. Then, your beautiful eyes flashed fire, and your soul was in your words: who could resist them? And you spoke to me like a friend; now you speak to me like an enemy."

"Oh, Mr. Little, that is ridiculous."

"You do, though. And I'm sure I don't know why."

"Nor I. Perhaps because I am cross with myself; certainly not with you."

"I am glad of that. Well, then, the long and the short is, you showed me you thought it cowardly to fly from the Trades. You wouldn't, said you, if you were a man. Well, I'm a man; and I'll do as you would do in my place. I'll not throw my life away, I'll meet craft with craft, and force with force; but fly I never will. I'll fight while I've a leg to stand on."

With these words he began to work on the bust, in a quiet dogged way that was, nevertheless, sufficiently expressive.

Grace looked at him silently for half a minute, and then rose from her chair.

"Then," said she, "I must go for somebody of more authority than I am." She sailed out of the room.

Henry asked Jael who she was gone for.

"It will be her papa," said Jael.

"As if I care for what he says."

"I wouldn't show HER that, if I was you," said Jael, quietly, but with a good deal of weight.

"You are right," said Henry. "You are a good girl. I don't know which is the best, you or Martha. I say, I promised to go to Cairnhope some Sunday, and see them all. Shall I drive you over?"

"And bring me back at night?"

"If you like. I must come back."

"I'll ask Miss Carden."

The words were quiet and composed, but the blushing face beamed with unreasonable happiness; and Grace, who entered at that moment with her father, was quite struck with its eloquence; she half started, but took no further notice just then. "There, papa," said she, "this is Mr. Little."

Mr. Carden was a tall gentleman, with somewhat iron features, but a fine head of gray hair; rather an imposing personage; not the least pompous though; quite a man of the world, and took a business view of everything, matrimony, of course, included.

"Oh, this is Mr. Little, is it, whose work we all admire so much?"

"Yes, papa."

"And whose adventure has made so much noise?"

"Yes, papa."

"By-the-bye, there is an article to-day on you: have you seen it? No? But you should see it; it is very smart. My dear" (to Jael), "will you go to my study, and bring the Liberal here?"

"Yes, but meantime, I want you to advise him not to subject himself to more gunpowder and things, but to leave the town; that is all the wretches demand."

"And that," said Henry, with a sly, deferential tone, "is a good deal to demand in a free country, is it not, sir?"

"Indeed it is. Ah, here comes the Liberal. Somebody read the article to us, while he works. I want to see how he does it."

Curiosity overpowered Grace's impatience, for a moment, and she read the notice out with undisguised interest.

"'THE LAST OUTRAGE.

"'In our first remarks upon this matter, we merely laid down an alternative which admits of no dispute; and, abstaining from idle conjectures, undertook to collect evidence. We have now had an interview with the victim of that abominable outrage. Mr.—— is one of those superior workmen who embellish that class for a few years, but invariably rise above it, and leave it' (there—Mr. Little!)—'He has informed us that he is a stranger in Hillsborough, lives retired, never sits down in a public-house, and has not a single enemy in Hillsborough, great or small. He says that his life was saved by his fellow-workmen, and that as he lay scorched—'(Oh, dear!')

"Well, go on, Grace."

"It is all very well to say go on, papa—'scorched and bleeding on the ground and unable to distinguish faces' (poor, poor Mr. Little!) 'he heard, on all sides of him, expressions of rugged sympathy and sobs, and tears, from rough, but—manly fellows, who—'(oh! oh! oh!")

Grace could not go on for whimpering, and Jael cried, for company. Henry left off carving, and turned away his head, touched to the heart by this sweet and sudden sympathy.

"How badly you read," said Mr. Carden, and took the journal from her. He read in a loud business-like monotone, that, like some blessed balm, dried every tear. "'Manly fellows who never shed a tear before: this disposed of one alternative, and narrowed the inquiry. It was not a personal feud; therefore it was a Trade outrage, or it was nothing. We now took evidence bearing on the inquiry thus narrowed; and we found the assault had been preceded by a great many letters, all of them breathing the spirit of Unionism, and none of them intimating a private wrong. These letters, taken in connection, are a literary curiosity; and we find there is scarcely a manufacturer in the place who has not endured a similar correspondence, and violence at the end of it. This curious chapter of the human mind really deserves a separate heading, and we introduce it to our readers as

"THE LITERATURE OF OUTRAGE."

"'First of all comes a letter to the master intimating that he is doing something objectionable to some one of the many Unions that go to make a single implement of hardware. This letter has three features. It is signed with a real name. It is polite. It is grammatical.

"'If disregarded, it is speedily followed by another. No. 2 is grammatical, or thereabouts; but, under a feigned politeness, the insolence of a vulgar mind shows itself pretty plainly, and the master is reminded what he suffered on some former occasion when he rebelled against the trades. This letter is sometimes anonymous, generally pseudonymous.

"'If this reminder of the past and intimation of the future is disregarded, the refractory master gets a missive, which begins with an affectation of coarse familiarity, and then rises, with a ludicrous bound, into brutal and contemptuous insolence. In this letter, grammar is flung to the winds, along with good manners; but spelling survives, by a miracle. Next comes a short letter, full of sanguinary threats, and written in, what we beg leave to christen, the Dash dialect, because, though used by at least three million people in England, and three thousand in Hillsborough, it can only be printed with blanks, the reason being simply this, that every sentence is measled with oaths and indecencies. These letters are also written phonetically, and, as the pronunciation, which directs the spelling, is all wrong, the double result is prodigious. Nevertheless, many of these pronunciations are ancient, and were once universal. An antiquarian friend assures us the orthography of these blackguards, the scum of the nineteenth century, is wonderfully like that of a mediaeval monk or baron.

"'When the correspondence has once descended to the Dash dialect, written phonetically, it never remounts toward grammar, spelling or civilization; and the next in the business is rattening, or else beating, or shooting, or blowing-up the obnoxious individual by himself, or along with a houseful of people quite strange to the quarrel. Now, it is manifest to common sense, that all this is one piece of mosaic, and that the criminal act it all ends in is no more to be disconnected from the last letter, than the last letter from its predecessor, or letter three from letter two. Here is a crime first gently foreshadowed, then grimly intimated, then directly threatened, then threatened in words that smell of blood and gunpowder, and then—done. The correspondence and the act reveal—

"The various talents, but the single mind."

"'In face of this evidence, furnished by themselves, the trades Unions, some member of which has committed this crime, will do well to drop the worn-out farce of offering a trumpery reward and to take a direct and manly course. They ought to accept Mr.——'s preposterously liberal offer, and admit him to the two Unions, and thereby disown the criminal act in the form most consolatory to the sufferer: or else they should face the situation, and say, "This act was done under our banner, though not by our order, and we stand by it." The Liberal will continue to watch the case.'"

"This will be a pill," said Mr. Carden, laying down the paper. "Why, they call the Liberal the workman's advocate."

"Yes, papa," said Grace; "but how plainly he shows—But Mr. Little is a stranger, and even this terrible lesson has not—So do pray advise him."

"I shall be very happy; but, when you are my age, you will know it is of little use intruding advice upon people."

"Oh, Mr. Little will treat it with proper respect, coming from one so much older than himself, and better acquainted with this wretched town. Will you not, Mr. Little?" said she, with so cunning a sweetness that the young fellow was entrapped, and assented, before he knew what he was about; then colored high at finding himself committed.

Mr. Carden reflected a moment. He then said, "I can't take upon myself to tell any man to give up his livelihood. But one piece of advice I can conscientiously give Mr. Little."

"Yes, papa."

"And that is—TO INSURE HIS LIFE."

"Oh, papa!" cried Grace.

As for Henry he was rather amused, and his lip curled satirically. But the next moment he happened to catch sight of Jael Dence's face; her gray eyes were expanded with a look of uneasiness; and, directly she caught his eye she fixed it, and made him a quick movement of the head, directing him to assent.

There was something so clear and decided in the girl's manner that it overpowered Henry who had no very clear idea to oppose to it, and he actually obeyed the nod of this girl, whom he had hitherto looked on as an amiable simpleton.

"I have no objection to that," said he, turning to Mr. Carden. Then, after another look at Jael, he said, demurely, "Is there any insurance office you could recommend?"

Mr. Carden smiled. "There is only one I have a right to recommend, and that is the 'Gosshawk.' I am a director. But," said he, with sudden stiffness, "I could furnish you with the names of many others."

Henry saw his way clear by this time. "No, sir, if I profit by your advice, the least I can do is to choose the one you are a director of."

Grace, who had latterly betrayed uneasiness and irritation, now rose, red as fire. "The conversation is taking a turn I did not at all intend," said she, and swept out of the room with royal disdain.

Her father apologized carelessly for her tragical exit. "That is a young lady who detests business; but she does not object to its fruits—dresses, lace, footmen, diamonds, and a carriage to drive about in. On the contrary, she would be miserable without them."

"I should hope she never will be without them, sir."

"I'll take care of that."

Mr. Carden said this rather dryly, and then retired for a minute; and Grace who was not far off, with an ear like a hare, came back soon after.

But in the meantime Henry left his seat and went to Jael, and, leaning over her as she worked, said, "There is more in that head of yours than I thought."

"Oh, they all talk before me," said Jael, blushing faintly, and avoiding his eye.

"Jael Dence," said the young man, warmly, "I'm truly obliged to you."

"What for?"

"For your good advice. I didn't see how good it was till after I had taken it."

"I'm afeard Miss Grace gave you better."

"She advised me against my heart. What is the use of that?"

"Ay, young men are willful."

"Come, come, don't you go back. You are my friend and counselor."

"That is something," said Jael, in a low voice; and her hands trembled at her side.

"Why, my dear girl, what's the matter?"

"Hush! hush?"



CHAPTER VIII.

Grace came in, that moment, with a superb air. She settled herself on the sofa.

"Now, it is my turn, if you please. Pray, sir, do you think your life will be any safer for your insuring it? Insuring does not mean that you are not to be killed; but that, when you ARE, for your obstinacy, somebody else will get paid some money, to dance with over your grave."

"I beg your pardon, Grace," said Mr. Carden, entering with some printed papers in his hand. "That is not the only use of an insurance. He may want to marry, or to borrow a sum of money to begin business; and then a policy of insurance, with two or three premiums paid, smooths the difficulty. Everybody should make a will, and everybody should insure his life."

"Well then, sir, I will do both."

"Stop!" said Mr. Carden, who could now afford to be candid. "First of all, you ought to satisfy yourself of the flourishing condition of the company." He handed him a prospectus. "This will show you our capital, and our disbursements last year, and the balance of profit declared. And this gives the balance sheet of the 'Vulture' and the 'Falcon,' which have assigned their business to us, and are now incorporated in the 'Gosshawk.'"

"Oh, what a voracious bird!" observed Grace. "I hope these other chickabiddies will not prove indigestible. Were they plucked first, papa? or did the 'Gosshawk' swallow them feathers and all?"

Little laughed heartily at this pert sally, but Mr. Carden winced under it.

Then Grace saw she was not quite weaponless, and added, "After such a meal, as that, Mr. Little, you will go down like a crumb."

"Grace, that is enough," said Mr. Carden, rather severely.

Grace held her tongue directly, and the water came into her eyes. Anything like serious remonstrance was a novelty to her.

When Henry had read the papers, Mr. Carden asked him, rather carelessly, what sum he wished to be insured for.