away and stay away for ten years with the boy. And then I will come back, and put him out in life, and settle down. I shall be turned forty then. I shall never marry. I have said 80. There will be other children then, Grace's children, to amuse me. I shall spend the rest of my life, thirty years and more, among the children.”

He took no notice of the letter, and went on to the postoffice, to find out Frank, if possible. It was a poor little postoffice, kept by a bookseller in a small way, perhaps a man who should be described as one who sold small books. Specimens of his ware were in the window, cheap religious books mostly, and the doorway was filled with the affiche boards of daily papers.

Dick found a woman behind the counter, and stated his business.

“I—I—don't think it's hardly regular," she said. “People come and get their letters here, but I don't know that I ought to tell you anything about them."

"There's five shillings, now you will tell me.”

It was blunt, but effective. The woman took the shillings, put them in her pocket, and went on at once.

"I don't know anything about the gentleman who has the letters addressed to him as Mr. Melliship. Sometimes he comes, a tall, fair-haired young man, quite the gentleman; sometimes it's a young person.

A girl, you mean? A young lady ?"

She smiled superior, and tossed her head.

"Not a lady, I should say, certainly. At least, I wouldn't compare her with myself. A young woman, sir."

"Pretty, as well as young ?"

She bridled up. "That's a matter of opinion. I don't hold with a pink and rose face, and a bit of false hair." "Is that all you can tell me?"

"That's all, sir, I'm sorry to say."

"Then you've taken five shillings out of me on false pretences," said Dick, pretending to be in a rage. "I've a great mind to report you to head quarters." The woman turned all colours. "Well, I won't this time, if you'll tell Mr. Melliship, or the young person, the next time the letters are asked for, that his cousin has been to see him, and wants him particularly. On what day does the young person come?"

"On Monday morning, always, sir, about eleven o'clock, unless he comes himself. Quite the gentleman, he is.

He was in the neighbourhood of Gray's Inn-road, and thought of Mrs. Kneebone's; he took his way down that thoroughfare with a view of finding out if Polly had been there, and what she had done.

Sitting at the entrance of the court was the boy Thoozy, looking wistfully down in the direction of Holborn. It was down the street that little Bill had gone with the swell; and he naturally expected that it was by that way he would return. Dick touched him on the shoulder.

He jumped up on his crutches, and grinned a perfect pæan of joy.

66

Well, Thoozy," said Dick, "and how's things?"

"How's little Bill? returned Thoozy.

"Well and strong. He sent you a message a little while ago by a tramp. Didn't you get it ?"

66

Never," said Thoozy. "Never. What was it?"

"Only to send his love, and you were not to forget him." "I never forgets him," said the poor boy. "I got no one to talk to now he's gone; and the old woman's took on dreadful with drink ever since the day Polly Tresler came."

"Ah! what was that? Tell me all about it, boy. Come into the court and sit on your own step."

Mrs. Kneebone saw them coming up the road, and trembled. Was further information wanted, and should she expose herself to another assault, of an aggravated nature? She decided at once on her line of action, and, putting on her shawl, she took a jug, and a big key, so as to show that she meant business, and sallied down the steps.

"Me-thew-salem," she said, with great sweetness, "I'm obliged for to go out a little bit. Take care of them blessed children while I'm away. Good morning, sir. And it's hoping you found all that I told you c'rect."

Dick nodded his head, and she passed on, seeing no prospect of further coin. "Now, Thoozy," said Dick, "tell me all about it."

If Methusalem had been born in a somewhat higher sphere of life; if he had not been lame; if his flesh, which was weak, had been equal to his spirit, which was strong; if he had been educated for the stage; he might have made a low comedian of a very unusual kind. His talent was prodigious, but his training was defective.

With an instinctive feeling that a vivid picture of Mrs. Kneebone's discomfiture and Polly's subsequent disaster would

be appreciated Thoory exacted the whole were with a daymatie gerne walich set the tragedy vividly before his listener. The boy forgot his lameness and infomy, mimicked their voices, alternately doing Mrs. Kneebone with her annettatory hypocrisy, and Polly with her stiky disbelied. When be pai in the fishing touch of Mrs. Kneebone's really flared remark abous himself, Dick reared with langiser.

"Look here, boy," he said, "you are not very anxious, I suppose, to stay here all your life?

"I'm an old man," said Troczy, with a comical leer. “I'm getting very old, and past work. I used to think I'd stay on here all my days; but now little Bill is gone, and I get nobody to talk to, I think a change might do me good. My doctor did recommend," he added, waving his hand grandly, “that I should take six months' holiday, and go to one of our country seats. With port wine. Says I must drink port wine. three glasses a day. As the resident physician, I couldn't spare the time; but if you press me very hard, I might get away for a bit. I say, sir," he went on, in a changed voice, "let me see little Bill again. I won't do him no harm. I never did that I knows on. Let me have a talk with him once more, only once."

Dick hesitated. Why should he not take the boy away? With all his quaint affectations, his oddities, and infirmities. he could do no harm to his adopted son. Why not take him too? He took out a card case, and printed his address on a card in pencil.

"I live here. You can read that? Good. Jermyn-street, off Regent-street. Now be careful, and listen. Little Bill is with me there. You make your way at once to St. James's Park. Wait about the door of the Duke of York's Column. I will send Bill to you, or bring him if he doesn't know the way."

"Bill not know the way! He knows his way, like a ferret, all over London, even where he hasn't been. Bill wasn't along with me for nothing.”

"Good. You two boys may spend the whole day together; bring him back to Jermyn-street at nine. As the clock strikes, mind."

"I will. Sharp at nine."

Dick considered a moment.

"Bill's got good clothes now, too,” he said.

like some decent things to put on ? "

"Would you

Thoozy looked at his old coat and his torn trousers, and sighed.

Come, then. I know a man close by."

He took him to the same dealer who had refitted little Bill, and provided him with a suit of clothes, including stockings -quite unknown to Thoozy, except by hearsay, up to that time-better than he had ever dreamed of.

"Now you've plenty of time, go into Endell-street, and have a bath, brush your hair, and make yourself quite respectable."

He gave him a few shillings to complete his arrangements, and walked away.

Thoozy went back to the court, amid the jeers of the populace who recognised him, in spite of his grandeur-just to see that the babies were not coming to any harm, rescuing an infant from imminent suffocation, by reason of a corner of the sheet, which it mistook, through want of experience, for the mouth of a feeding bottle. Thoozy shook them all up, and went his way.

It was one o'clock when Dick got back to Jermyn-street. "There's a friend of yours wants to see you very much,"

he said to his ward.

"Thoozy! Thoozy!" cried the boy, with delight.
"That is the party. Are
"Very little, Uncle Dick."

"Got any money?"

you hungry, Bill ?"

Little Bill produced two and fourpence from his pocket. "Go on, then. You can have your dinner with Methusalem, where you like. You know your way to the Duke of York's Column. Wait there till you see him."

Dick Mortiboy lunched in his own room, and then smoked the cigar of content and happiness. He embodied his discoveries at the Post Office in Great Bedford-street, in a short note to Grace Heathcote, and despatched it to the pillar box by the woman who was in charge. This was the purport of it :-"Frank calls for his letters, or has them called for by a young woman every Monday morning. We must wait till then. Next Monday I will be there."

It was about three o'clock that a man, all in rags and tatters, rang at the door bell. The old woman in charge-all the other lodgers were out of town-opened it and looked at him with suspicion.

"I want Mr. Mortiboy."

“Give me your name, and I'll see,” she said.
"He knows me. Let me pass.”

The man pushed by her, and mounted the stairs. Dick's sitting-room was at the back, second floor, a small room, but big enough for his purposes. He had, besides, a bedroom for himself, with a dressing-room, in which was a bed for the boy.

He was sitting over his third cigar. He never read books, having lost the habit of reading long since. Sometimes he looked at the newspaper, but not often. He was, therefore, like Captain Bowker in one respect, that all his ideas were his own. To-day he was more happy and contented than he had ever been before since his return. All was going well with him. Grace would not have him. Very good.

"If she be not fair to me,

What care I how fair she be?"

They

a quotation he certainly would have made, if he had known it. Unromantic as it may seem, Dick cured himself of his passion by the simple expedient of giving the girl up. He loved her no longer. Men only really love a girl-with that blind, passionate devotion which burns her image upon their hearts in indelible characters, like a tattoo on the armbetween the ages of twenty and thirty. After that-experience. Men past the sixth lustrum know womankind better. The know the other sex because they know their own. know that no women are perfect, and they suspect their own passion. Now suspicion to passion is like the sunshine to a coal fire-puts it out. Dick gave up his love with a mighty effort, because it was very strong. But having given it up, he gave it up altogether. There is no half measures with Dick. Thorough at all times. If Grace had accepted him, no husband could have been more true and more faithful than he, more attentive, more thoughtful. Just as he had been a thorough rogue, just as he was going to be a thorough respectable," just so he would have been a thorough lover. But it could not be; and therefore, as a philosopher, he acknowledged that it was better not to think of it. Now his plans were changed. To go away altogether, to take the boy with him he was now considering even the thought of taking Thoozy, too, had crossed his mind-to come back after many years. This was his new programme. As he lay back in his easy chair, his handsome face breathed a sweet spirit of