6

'You did you did,' cried Bunker, eagerly. Ah! sir, why did you let him come back here? A bad business, a bad business!' 'I came to see him to-day, perhaps to ask him why he stays.

here.'

'Take him away again, sir. Don't let him stay. Mr. Bunker put up his hands in warning.

sir!'

Rocks ahead,

When I see

youth going to capsize on virtue, it makes my blood, as a Christian Take him away.'

man, to curdle. Certainly.

6

It does you great credit, Mr. Bunker, as a Christian man, because curdled blood must be unpleasant. Butwhat rocks?'

'A rock. One rock, a woman. In that 'ouse, sir, she lives. Her name is Miss Kennedy. That is what she calls herself. She's a dressmaker by trade, she says, and a captivator of foolish young men by nature. Don't go anigh her. She may captivate you. Daniel Fagg made her an offer of marriage, and he's sixty. He confessed it to me. She tried it on with me, but a man of principles is proof. The conjuror wanted to marry her. My nephew, Dick Coppin, is a fool about her.'

'She must be a very remarkable woman,' said Lord Jocelyn.

'As for that boy, Harry Goslett,' Bunker uttered the name with an obvious effort. He's farther gone than all the rest put together. If it wasn't for her, he would go back to where he came from.'

"Ah! and where is that?'

'Don't you know, then? You, the man who took him away? Don't you know where he came from? Was it something very bad?'

There was a look of eager malignity about the man's face; he wanted to hear something bad about his nephew.

Lord Jocelyn encouraged him.

'Perhaps I know, perhaps I do not.'

'A disgraceful story, no doubt,' said Bunker with a pleased smile. I dreaded the worst when I saw him with his white hands and his sneerin' fleerin' ways. I thought of Newgate and gaolbirds; I did, indeed, at once. Oh! prophetic soul. Well, now we know the worst; and you had better take him away before all the world knows it. I shan't talk, of course.'

"Thank you, Mr. Bunker. And about this Miss Kennedy-is there anything against her, except that the men fall in love with her?'

'There is plenty against her. But I'm not the man to take away a woman's character. Reports about her that would astonish you. If all secrets were known, we should find what a viper we've

been cherishing. At the end of her year out she goes of my 'ouse. Bag and baggage, she goes. And wherever she goes that boy 'll go after her, unless you prevent it.'

'Thank you again, Mr. Bunker. Good morning.'

Angela, just returned from her chapel, was sitting at the window of the work-room in her usual place. She looked out upon the green now and again. Presently she saw Mr. Maliphant creep slowly along the pavement, and observed that he stopped and spoke to a gentleman: then she saw Daniel Fagg swinging his arms and gesticulating as he rehearsed to himself the story of his wrongs, and he stopped and spoke to the same man; then she saw Mr. Bunker walking moodily on his way: and he stopped too, and conversed with the stranger. Then he turned and she saw his face. It was Lord Jocelyn Le Breton, and he was walking with intention towards her own door.

He was coming to see

She divined the truth in a moment. 'the dressmaker' who had bewitched his boy.

She whispered to Nelly that a gentleman was coming to see her who must be shown upstairs; she took refuge in the drawingroom, which was happily empty, and she awaited him with a beating heart.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs. The door opened. She rose to meet him.

"You here, Miss Messenger? This is, indeed, a surprise.' No, Lord Jocelyn,' she replied, confused, yet trying to speak confidently. 'In this house, if you please, I am not Miss Messenger; I am Miss Kennedy, the-the- now she remembered exactly what her next words would mean to him, and she blushed violently. I am-the-the dressmaker.'

(To be continued.)

285

Winks.

'Ir is absolutely impossible, madam,' said the station-master. 'Though you, and the gentleman, have the compartment to yourselves, for the present, it is quite sure to be filled up, either at Swindon or Bristol, and I cannot allow the comfort of four or five passengers to be interfered with for the sake of one.'

'Of course you cannot,' said the member of my family to whom this very reasonable expostulation was addressed; but Swindon is a long way from Paddington, and, as there will be plenty of time to put anything you like into the guard's van, when the other passengers claim their places, we need not trouble ourselves about that, just now.'

'You need not, madam,' said the guard; but it is my duty' 'I am afraid this excitement will do you no good,' interposed a medical friend, who, having just pulled my companion through a long and dangerous illness, felt a little doubtful as to her fitness for the journey we were undertaking.

'Then, why do you not put an end to it, by threatening to complain to the directors?' asked the patient, with the delicate politeness usually manifested by convalescents to those who endeavour to check their proverbial imprudence.

Which are the most important, sir?' whispered a delightfully sympathetic young porter, close behind my ear.

6

The large ones,' said I, significantly conveying my right hand to the neighbourhood of a promising pocket.

At this stage of the proceedings, a ring was formed, with shawls and wrappers in place of the orthodox' ropes,' and an army of packages in lieu of privileged spectators. Within this charmed circle, the station-master and the member of my family fought out their battle, à outrance, with the doctor for umpire; and my own private opinion is, that the umpire got very much the worst of it, notwithstanding the beneficence of his intentions and the practical good sense of his advice. The grain of wheat always does get crushed between two opposing millstones: how, then, could our poor M.D. hope to pass scatheless through the ordeal of such a mill' as this! However, this being manifestly his business rather than mine, I decided that one crushing would serve for both of us, and resigned him to his fate. Meanwhile, the obliging young porter ostentatiously walked off with a bag of biscuits and