By its first light he began to arrange his dress. A piece of paper, all that remained in the now open box, caught his eye; he took it up, and his face grew more sad, as he read the words pencilled on it,

"I had forgotten that too," he said to himself. 'Everything! for her, everything forgotten and neglected. I might think I was punished for putting them aside, that I'd sworn never to forget. And yet, oh God! I trusted to the loveliest and the kindest of thy creation! Is there none to be trusted or put faith in! no justice, nor truth, nor faith, upon earth? Are the right-meaning always to suffer ?-the bad always to triumph ?-nothing, nothing, but the old story! Poor little Bob! I promised so faithfully to see his mother. More than a year ago. God forgive me !"

He put the scrap with the address into his pocket. One look he gave, round the old room, cold and empty now, as by the desertion of a visible presence.

A bundle in his hand contained his few extra clothes. He went straight to the house of the foreman, his friend, and told him just what was necessary of his story.

Trouble had come upon him, he said, he could not stay at the foundry, not if he had to forfeit a week's wage, or more. The little sum which had accumulated in the hands of his friend, he now begged to have given up to him.

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Nay, no wage will you forfeit Steyne, my lad," said the good man, as he added that to the store. "Sorry enough I am to lose you, goodness knows-I see how it is, but it's no use talking, I know. What must be, must, I expect; so good-bye and God bless

you. You'll not come in for a bit of breakfast? Well, good-bye, and luck be with you."

Philip asked him as a favour to take charge of the rent for his lodging, and to send it. He could not reenter the house again. He panted to be away. Brave heart it was, that held the burning iron to the wound unshrinkingly, nor shirked the painful remedy.

By nine o'clock he was out of the town, upon his journey.

The spell was dissolved, the bridge had broken, and he once more breasting the chill waters, swallowing the salt brine, of Life's stern reality.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

THE CARAVAN.

"Adversity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows."

Ir was a bitter night. Across the open fields and commons the wind howled and roared, spending its fury on empty space, or, like an enraged tyrant, stooping to vent its passion on the meanest. A donkey's tail, or the barest branch of a meek pollard, alike failed to escape.

Coming upon the outskirts of a dreary waste, over which it had swept unhindered, it lulled as if in speculation upon what manner of object it had lighted

on.

The inspection was a brief one; then the enquirer set himself to test the capabilities of his new discovery.

He howled down the short chimney, he puffed at the small firm-set windows, he roared at the door, and shook it mightily, crept under, raged round, and over, tried every corner. The humble fabric stood quiet, made but litle sign, and the petulant blast swept on, with a parting scoff at two large-limbed scant-tailed quadrupeds browsing hard by.

"Cuss the smoke, then!" growled an angry voice, as the speaker looked up from a dirty paper he was

reading, by the light of a fire, considerably flustered at that moment by the sudden attentions of the fitful element without.

"It's the wind"—said a woman, who, on the other side, the stove was engaged upon a mysterious looking garment.

"I know it's the wind; confound it! there it comes again."

"It'll burn clear in a minute, Jem," observed the woman, as she stirred the fire, which, sending up a volume of flame, dispersed the smoke, and threw a bright glare upon the interior of the tenement that had puzzled Inspector Boreas.

Heterogeneous enough to have puzzled any beholder was the display comprised within those four walks.

Of the ordinary articles of furniture there were a table and two chairs ; in one corner stood a press, from which protruded the corner of a coloured quilt, inducing more than a suspicion of its double purpose. Upon it were piled sundry articles of crockery, a couple of battered candlesticks, a much used hair brush and comb, a pair of soiled stockings, and a loaf.

On the floor, near the stove, lay a pair of man's boots, well worn and muddy; into them stuck carelessly a couple of tiny buff leather slippers, and across a chair-back hung more of the same articles, which had apparently undergone some cleansing process.

A tub of water was in one corner, a pail of coals in another; across a third hung a curtain of dark stuff: here and there upon the floor lay a cap, a knife, a knot of dirty ribbon, or a tinselled flower; the walls were hung with bits, bridles, huge-cushioned saddles, soiled fleshings of silk and leather, and gaudy fillets

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for the head. Upon a rude screen, which shut out the door from the room, were crossed a couple of whips, two fencing swords, and a pair of cymbals.

Order could not at any time have been the presiding genius of this strange abode. Not a thing but appeared subverted from its original purpose. The fire was stirred with a stick, a broken plate was the shovel. A dab of butter stood in a mug, a saucer contained treacle; from a battered pewter pot, under the table, a red herring projected its brittle tail; a' lump of soap had taken the place in the basin of the sugar, which, in a brown paper on the table, offered every temptation to peculative fingers. The woman' sat on a ragged cushion, the man on an old box, leaning his back against the chair, upon whose seat was a pewter pot and pipe; the other chair had been transferred to the table, apparently to make room for the gambols of two lithe-limbed mortals, of some two and a half feet high, who growled and kicked, and wrestled, amid suppressed bursts of laughter, in the furthest shadows of the apartment.

The woman stitched, and the man pored upon his paper, till a sudden influx of smoke caused him to burst out with an oath-" Where the is that fellow got to? why don't he come with them candles ? Now then! you young varmint! what are you up to?" he exclaimed, as a crash and rattle gave token of some disaster." What are you up to now ?" "It was Alb did it."

"Oh Tuk, it was you." "It wasn't!"

"Bless your eyes both on ye!-if you don't come out o' that!-where's my whip ?"