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CHRISTMAS STORIES.

* * * * *

BLADE-O'-GRASS. GOLDEN GRAIN.
AND
BREAD AND CHEESE AND KISSES.

BY

B. L. FARJEON,

AUTHOR OF
"GRIF," "JOSHUA MARVEL," AND "LONDON'S HEART."

* * * * *

LONDON:

TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.

1874.

[All Rights reserved.]

CONTENTS.

[BLADE-O'-GRASS.]

By B. L. FARJEON,

AUTHOR OF 'GRIF' and 'JOSHUA MARVEL.'

[INTRODUCTION.]

STONEY-ALLEY.

In the heart of a very maze of courts and lanes Stoney-alley proclaims itself. It is one of multitude of deformed thoroughfares, which are huddled together--by whim, or caprice, or in mockery--in a populous part of the City, in utter defiance of all architectural rules. It is regarded as an incontrovertible law, that everything must have a beginning; and Stoney-alley could not have been an exception to this law. It is certain that the alley and its surrounding courts and lanes must once upon a time have been a space where houses were not; where, perhaps, trees grew, and grass, and flowers. But it is difficult to imagine; more difficult still to imagine how they were commenced, and by what gradual means one wretched thoroughfare was added to another, until they presented themselves to the world in the shapes and forms they now bear; resembling an ungainly body with numerous limbs, every one of which is twisted and deformed. Easier to fancy that they and all the life they bear sprang up suddenly and secretly one dark night, when Nature was in a sullen mood; and that being where they are, firmly rooted, they have remained, unchangeable and unchanging, from generation to generation. Records exist of fair islands rising from the sea, clothed with verdure and replete with animal fife; but this is the bright aspect of phenomena which are regarded as delusions by many sober persons. Putting imagination aside, therefore, as a thing of small account in these days (if only for the purpose of satisfying unbelievers), and coming to plain matter of fact, it is not to be doubted that Stoney-alley and its fellows grew upon earth's surface, and did sot spring up, ready-made, from below--although, truth to tell, it was worthy of such a creation. In the natural course of things, the neighbourhood must have had architects and builders; but no record of them is extant, and none is necessary for the purposes of this story. Sufficient that Stoney-alley rears its ugly body--though lowly withal--in the very heart of London, and that it may be seen any day in the week in its worst aspect. It has no other: it is always at its worst.

Out of it crawl, from sunrise until midnight, men and women, who, when they emerge into the wide thoroughfare which may be regarded as its parent, not uncommonly pause for a few moments, or shade their eyes with their hands, or look about them strangely, as if they have received a surprise, or as if the different world in which they find themselves requires consideration. Into it crawl, from sunrise until midnight, the same men and women, who, it may be observed, draw their breath more freely when they are away from the wide thoroughfares, and who plunge into Stoney-alley as dusty, heat-worn travellers might plunge into a refreshing bath, where the cool waters bring relief to the parched skin. What special comfort these men and women find there, would be matter for amazement to hundreds of thousands of other men and women whose ways of life, happily, lie in pleasanter places. But Stoney-alley, to these crawlers, is Home.

Its houses could never have been bright; its pavements and roads--for it has those, though rough specimens, like their treaders--could never have been fresh. Worn-out stones and bricks, having served their time elsewhere and been cashiered, were probably brought into requisition here to commence a new and unclean life. No cart had ever been seen in Stoney-alley: it was too narrow for one. A horse had once lived there--a spare sad blind horse belonging to a costermonger, who worked his patient servant sixteen hours a-day, and fed it upon Heaven knows what. It was a poor patient creature; and as it trudged along, with its head down, it seemed by its demeanour to express an understanding of its meanness. That it was blind may have been a merciful dispensation; for, inasmuch as we do not know for certain whether such beasts can draw comparisons as well as carts, it may have been spared the pangs of envy and bitterness, which it might have experienced at the sight of the well-fed horses that passed it on the road. It was as thin as a live horse well could be--so thin, that a cat might have been forgiven for looking at it with contempt, as being likely to serve no useful purpose after its worldly trudgings were ended. Its mane was the raggedest mane that ever was seen; and it had no tail. What of its hair had not been appropriated by its master the costermonger, had been plucked out ruthlessly, from time to time, by sundry boys and girls in Stoney-alley--being incited thereto by an ingenious youth, who plaited the horsehair into watchguards, and who paid his young thieves in weak liquorice-water, at the rate of a teaspoonful for every dozen hairs--long ones--from the unfortunate horse's tail. For years had this poor beast been wont to stumble over the stones in Stoney-alley when its day's work was over, and wait like a human being before its master's house for the door to open--rubbing its nose gently up and down the panels when a longer delay than usual occurred. The door being opened, it used to enter the narrow passage, and fill the house with thunderous sound as it walked into a little dirty yard, where a few charred boards (filched from a fire) had been tacked together in the form of a shed, which offered large hospitality to wind and rain. In this shed the wretched beast took its ease and enjoyed its leisure, and died one night so quietly and unexpectedly, that the costermonger, when he learnt the fact in the morning, cursed it for an ungrateful 'warmint,' and declared that if his dumb servant had yesterday shown any stronger symptoms of dying than it had usually exhibited, he would have sold it for 'two-pun-ten to Jimmy the Tinman.' So deeply was he impressed by the ingratitude of the animal, that he swore he would have nothing more to do with the breed; and he bought a donkey--a donkey with such a vicious temper, and such an obstinate disposition, that the costermonger, in his endeavours to render it submissive, became as fond of it as if it were one of his own kindred, and soon grew to treat it in exactly the same manner as he treated his wife. It would have been difficult, indeed, to decide which was the more important creature of the two--the wife or the donkey; for on two distinct occasions the costermonger was summoned before magistrate--once for ill-treating his wife, and once for ill-treating his donkey--and the sentence pronounced on each occasion was precisely the same. It may be noted as a curious contrast (affording no useful lesson that I am aware of), that when the costermonger came out of prison for ill-treating his wife, he went home and beat the poor creature unmercifully, who sat sobbing her heart out in a corner the while; and that when he came out of prison for ill-treating his donkey, he went into the rickety shed in his back-yard and belaboured the obstinate brute with a heavy stick. But the donkey, cunning after its kind, watched its opportunity, and gave the costermonger such a spiteful kick, that he walked lame for three months afterwards.

It would be unfair to the costermonger not to state, that he was not the only husband in those thoroughfares who was in the habit of beating his wife. He was but one of a very numerous Brute family, in whose breasts mercy finds no dwelling-place, and who marry and bring up children in their own form and likeness, morally as well as physically. It is to be lamented that, when the inhumanity of the members of this prolific family is brought before the majesty of the law for judgment--as is done every day of our lives--the punishment meted out is generally light and insignificant as compared to the offence. Yet it may be answered, that these wife-beaters and general Brutes were children once; and the question may be asked, Whether, taking into consideration that no opportunity was offered to them of acquiring a knowledge of a better condition of things, they are fully responsible for their actions now that they are men? We wage war against savage beasts for our own protection. But how about savage men, who might have been taught better--who might have been humanised? We press our thumb upon them, and make laws to punish the exercise of their lawless passions. But have they no case against us? Is all the right on our side, and all the wrong on theirs? That the problem is an old one, is the more to be lamented; every year, nay, every hour, its roots are striking deeper and deeper into the social stratum. The proverb, 'when things are quiet, let them be quiet,' is a bad proverb, like many others which are accepted as wisdom's essence. Not by a man's quiet face, but by his busy brain and heart, do we judge him. If there be benevolence in statesmanship, the problem should be considered in its entirety, without delay. By and by it may be too late.

[PART I.]

[A STRANGE EVENT OCCURS IN STONEY-ALLEY.]

Delicate feather-flakes of snow were floating gently down over all the City. In some parts the snow fell white and pure, and so remained for many hours. In other parts, no sooner did it reach the ground than it was converted into slush--losing its purity, and becoming instantly defiled. This was its fate in Stoney-alley; yet even there, as it rested upon the roofs and eaves, it was fresh and beautiful for a time. In which contrasted aspects a possible suggestion might arise of the capability of certain things for grace and holiness, if they are not trodden into the mire.

An event had just occurred in Stoney-alley which was the occasion of much excitement. This was nothing more or less than the birth of twin-girls in one of the meanest houses in the alley. The mother, a poor sickly woman, whose husband had deserted her, was so weakened and prostrated by her confinement, and by the want of nourishing food, that she lived but a dozen days after the birth of her babes. No one knew where the father was; he and his wife had not lived long in the neighbourhood, and what was known of him was not to his credit, although with a certain class he was not unpopular. He was lazy, surly fellow, who passed his waking hours in snarling at the better condition of things by which he was surrounded. The sight of carriage made his blood boil with envy; notwithstanding which he took delight in walking in the better thoroughfares of the City, and feeding his soul with the bitter sight of well-dressed people and smiling faces. Then he would come back to his proper home, and snarl at society to pot-house audiences, and in his own humble room would make his unhappy wife unhappier by his reviling and discontent He called himself working-man, but had as much right to the title as the vagabond-beggar who, dressed in broadcloth, is wheeled about in an easy-chair, in the West-end of London, and who (keeping a sharp look-out for the police the while) exhibits placard proclaiming himself to be a respectable commercial traveller, who has lost the use of his limbs. He traded upon the title, however, and made some little money out of it, hoping by and by to make more, when he had become sufficiently notorious as a public agitator. In the mean time, he (perhaps out of revenge upon society) deserted his wife when she was near her confinement, and left her to the mercy of strangers. She could not very well have fared worse than she did in that tender charge. She bore two babes, and died without a sign.

The mother was buried the day before Christmas, and the babes were left to chance charity. There were many women lodgers in the house in which the twin-girls had been born; but not one of them was rich enough to take upon herself the encumbrance of two such serious responsibilities. The station-house was spoken of, the Foundling, the workhouse; but not a soul was daring enough to carry out one of the suggestions. This arose from a fear of consequences--in the shape perhaps of an acknowledged personal responsibility, which might prove troublesome in the event of the station-house, the workhouse, or the Foundling refusing to take charge of the infants. Moses in the bulrushes was not in a worse plight than these unfortunate babes in Stoney-alley.

What on earth was to be done with them? Every person in the house might get into trouble, if they were left to die. The house, small as it was, accommodated five or six distinct families--each occupying room--in addition to two bachelors--one a vagrant, the other hawker in cheap glassware. These last could not be expected to assume the slightest shadow of responsibility. At length, a bright idea struck a charitable woman in the house. Armed only with calico apron with a large bib and an immense pocket in front (like stomacher), the charitable soul went about to solicit contributions in aid of the infants. As she walked round and about the narrow alleys and courts, soliciting from everybody, she made quite a stir in the neighbourhood by the vigorous manner in which she rattled the coppers in her capacious pocket. A great many gave, farthings and halfpence being in the ascendant--the largest contribution being given by the bachelor vagrant above mentioned, who gave twopence with the air of a gentleman--better still, with the true spirit of one; for he gave more than he could afford, and took no glory to himself for the action. Attracted by the rattle of the coppers, a singular-looking little man, with a shrivelled face, came to the door of his shop, and was instantly accosted by the kindhearted soul.

'You'll give a copper or two, I know, Mr. Virtue,' said the woman.

'Then you know more than I do,' replied the man. 'I don't give. I lend.'

'What'll you lend on 'em, then?' asked the woman good-humouredly.

'Lend on what?'

'On the poor little twins that was born in our house a fortnight ago?'

'O, that's what you're up to,' exclaimed the man, whose eyes were the most extraordinary pair that ever were seen in human face--for one was as mild as London milk, and the other glared like fury. 'That's what you're up to. Collectin' for them brats afore they learn to tell lies for theirselves.'

'They're as sweet a pair as ever you see,' said the woman. 'Just give it a thought, Mr. Virtue; you're a man o' sense----'

'Yah!' from the man, in the most contemptuous of tones, and with the fiercest of glares from his furious eye.

'There they are, without mother, as 'elpless as 'elpless can be,' persisted the woman, with wonderful display of cheerfulness. 'Come, now, you'll give a copper although you do look so grumpy.'

The cynic turned into his dark shop at this last appeal, but as he turned a penny dropped from his pocket. The woman picked it up with a pleasant laugh, and adding it to her store proceeded on her charitable mission. But industrious and assiduous as she was, the sum-total collected was very small; about sufficient to keep the infants for half a week. The kindhearted woman took the babes, and nursed them pro tem. She had a family of dirty children of her own, who were bringing themselves up in the gutters; for she could not attend to them, so fully was her time occupied in other ways. She could not, therefore, be expected to take permanent charge of the motherless babes. And so her husband told her, grumblingly, when he came home from his work on Christmas-eve. All that she said was, 'Poor little things!' and fell to--rough as she was--detecting imaginary beauties in the babies' faces--a common trick of mothers, which no man can afford to be cross with, especially in his own wife, and the woman who has borne him children.

'Can't put 'em out in the cold, the pretty dears!' said the woman tenderly.

'We've got enough of our own,' responded her husband not unkindly, and yet with a certain firmness; 'and there's more coming--worse luck!' But these last two words he said beneath his breath, and his wife did not hear them.

'All the more reason for being kind to these,' said the woman. 'They'll be handsome girls when they grow up. Look'ee here, Sam, this one's got a dimple, just like--like----' Her voice trailed off softly, and her husband knew that she was thinking of their first-born, that had lived but a few weeks.

I am aware that it is the fashion with a large class to regard the portrayal of sentiment among very common people as fanciful and untrue to nature. I differ from this class, I am glad to say. True love for women, and true tenderness for children, are common to all of us, whether high or low. Cynics cannot alter what is natural--in others.

The man felt kindly towards his wife and the babes, but he was not at all inclined to saddle himself with a couple of ready-made infants. He saw, however, that his wife was in a foolishly tender mood, and he let the subject drop for the present.

It may have been eight o'clock in the white night, and the bright snow was still falling like feathers from angels' wings, when at the door of the house in which the twins had been born and the mother had died, a lady and gentleman stopped, and, obtaining entrance, asked for the landlady. Unmistakably lady and gentleman, though plainly dressed. Not highly born, but as truly lady and gentleman as the best in the land. They were strangers to the landlady of the house; but she rose the instant they entered her apartment, and remained standing during the interview.

'We have to apologise for this intrusion,' commenced the lady, in a gentle voice; 'but although we are strangers to you, we are not here out of rudeness.'

'I'm sure of that, ma'am,' replied the landlady, dusting two chairs with her apron. 'Will you and the gentleman take a seat?'

'This is my husband,' said the lady, seating herself. 'Every year, on the anniversary of this evening, with the exception of last year, we have been in the habit of coming to some such place as this, where only poor people live----'

'Ah, you may say that, ma'am! The poorest!'

----'It is so, unfortunately. God help them! Every year until the last we have been in the habit of coming to some such place in furtherance of a scheme--a whim, perhaps, you'll call it--the development of which gives us the chief pleasure of our lives. We have no family of our own, no children that can properly call me mother and my husband father; so every year we adopt one and bring it up. We have six now, as many as we have been able to keep; for last year we lost part of our means through unwise speculation, for which I and my husband were equally to blame----'

'I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am,' interposed the landlady sympathisingly, standing in an attentive attitude, with the corner of her apron between her fingers.

'And having as many little responsibilities on us as our means would enable us to take proper care of, we were unable to add another to our family of little ones. But this year a fortunate thing has occurred to us. A kind friend has placed a small sum at our disposal, which will enable us to take a seventh child, and rear it in comfort and respectability.'

'And a lucky child that seventh 'ull be,' remarked the landlady. 'I'm a seventh child myself, and so was my mother before me, and we was both born on a 7th.'

The lady smiled, and continued,

'Every child we have is an orphan, without father or mother, which we believe to be necessary for the proper furtherance of our scheme. We feed them and nourish them properly--indeed, as if they were really our own--and when they are old enough, they will be put to some respectable occupation, which will render them independent of the world. Among the many poor children round about here, do you know of one who, having no natural protectors, would be bettered by coming under our charge? These letters will satisfy you of our fitness for the task, and that we are in earnest.'

'Lord bless me!' exclaimed the landlady, impelled to that exclamation by sudden thought of the twins upstairs, and not casting a glance at the papers which were placed in her hands. 'You don't mean what you say?'

'Indeed, we do. You will be kind enough to understand that we do not desire to take a child who has parents living, but one whom hard circumstance has placed in the world friendless and alone. These poor courts and alleys abound in children----'

'Ah, that they do; and a nice pest they are, a many on 'em. They're as thick as fleas.'

----'And at this season it is good to think of them, and to try to do some little thing in their behalf. It is but little that we can do--very, very little. Do you know of such a child as we seek for now?'

'A girl?

'A girl or boy.'

'God Almighty bless you, ma'am!' cried the landlady. 'Stop here minute, and I'll let you know.'

She ran in haste upstairs to where her kind-hearted lodger was nursing the twins.

'I beg you a thousand pardons, Mrs. Manning,' she said, panting, 'and you too, Mr. Manning, and I wish you a merry Christmas, and many on 'em! I'm that out of breath and that astonished, that I don't know if I'm on my head or my heels. Stay a minute, my good souls; I'll be back in a jiffey.'

With that, she ran out of the room and downstairs, to assure herself that her visitors had not flown, or that she had not been dreaming. Having satisfied herself she ran upstairs again, and sat down, in more panting state than before.

'I thought I was dreaming, and that they was apparitions.' she gasped.

Mr. Manning, being one of those Englishmen who look upon their habitations as their castles, was inclined to resent these intrusions. Unconsciously throwing a large amount of aggressiveness in his tone and manner, he asked his landlady if he owed her any rent, and received for answer, No, that he didn't, and the expression of a wish that everybody was like him in this respect.

'Very well, then,' said Mr. Manning, not at all mollified by the landlady's compliment, and speaking so surlily that (as the landlady afterwards said, in relating the circumstance) if it had not been for her being out of breath and for thinking of those two precious babes, he would have 'put her back up' there and then; 'if I don't owe you anything, what do you mean by coming bouncing into my room in this manner?'

'I asks your pardon,' said the landlady, with dignity; but instantly softening as she thought of her visitors down-stairs; 'but you've got a 'art in your bosom, and you've got the feelings of a father. The long and the short of it is'----and here she proceeded to explain the visit she had had, and the object of her visitors. 'Ah, Mr. Manning,' she continued, following the direction of his eyes towards the two babes lying in his wife's lap, 'you've got the same idea as I had in coming up here. Here's these two blessed babes, with no mother, and no father to speak of; for I don't believe he'll ever turn up. What's to become of 'em? Who's to take care of 'em? I'm sure you can't.'

'No, that I can't; and don't intend to.'

'And no one expects you, sir. You've got a big-enough family of your own. Well, here's this lady and gentleman setting downstairs this blessed minute as wants a child, and as'll do what's right and proper by it.'

'But there's a pair of 'em. Won't they take the two?'

'One they said, and one they mean. They can't hardly afford that, they said. And I'm as certain as I am that I'm setting here, that if they knew there was two of 'em, they wouldn't part 'em for the world. No, they'd go somewhere else; and the chance 'd be lost.'

'But they want a child that ain't got no father nor mother. Now, these young uns have a father; and that you know.'

'No, I don't; I don't know nothing of the kind. 'Taint the first story I've told by a many,' said the landlady, in answer to Mr. Manning's look of astonishment; 'and I don't mind telling this one to do a little baby good.'

'What's to become of the other? 'We'll look after her between us.

One'll take her one day, and one another. Lord bless you, Mr. Manning, we shall be able to manage.'

'And if the father comes back?'

'I'll get the lady's address, and give it to him; and then he can do as he likes.'

'It's the best thing that can be done; said Mr. Manning; 'though I've nothing to do with it, mind you; it's none of my business. I've got troubles enough of my own. But it ain't every young un that gets such a chance.'

'No, that it ain't;' and the landlady pulled her chair close to that of Mrs. Manning. 'Which shall it be, my dear?'

This proved to be a very difficult question to answer. First they decided that it was to be this one, then that; then soft-hearted Mrs. Manning began to cry, and said it was a sin to part them. And the babes lay sleeping unconsciously the while this momentous point was being discussed, the decision of which might condemn one to want and dirt and misery--to crime perhaps--and the other to a career where good opportunity might produce a happy and virtuous life. At length it was decided, and one was chosen; but when the landlady prepared to take the child, she found that the fingers of the babes were tightly interlaced; so she left them in Mrs. Manning's lap, with instructions to get the chosen one ready, and went down to her visitors.

'Poor child!' said the lady, at the conclusion of the landlady's recital; 'and the mother was only buried yesterday!'

'Only yesterday, ma'am,' responded the landlady; 'and the dear little thing is left without a friend. There's not one of us that wouldn't be glad to take care of it; but we're too poor, ma'am; and that's the fact.'

'The child's younger than we could have wished,' mused the lady, with a glance at her husband; 'but it would seem like a cruel desertion, now that we have heard its sad story.'

Her husband nodded, and the landlady, keenly watchful, said eagerly:

'I'll bring it down to you, ma'am. One of the lodgers is nursing it; but her husband's grumbling at her, and making her miserable about it He says he's got enough of his own; and so he has.'

By this time Mrs. Manning had the baby ready--she had dressed the child in some old baby-clothes of her own--and before she let it go out of her arms, she said, as if the little thing could understand:

'Kiss sister, baby. You'll never see her again, perhaps; and if you do, you won't know her.'

She placed their lips close together; and at that moment they opened their eyes, and smiled prettily on one another. The man and the two women stood by, gazing earnestly at the babes. Tears were in Mrs. Manning's eyes, as she witnessed the strange parting; the landlady was silent and pensive; and the man, with his hands behind him, seemed to be suddenly engrossed in the consideration of some social problem, which he found too perplexing for him. His wife raised the fortunate babe to his face.

'A happy New-year to you, little un,' said the not unkindly man, as he kissed the child.

'Suppose they were our'n, Sam,' said his wife, softly and tearfully; 'we shouldn't like this to happen.'

'But they're not our'n,' replied her husband; 'and that makes all the difference.'

And yet there was a wistful expression on his face, as the landlady took the baby out of the room.

'I've kept the prettiest one,' his wife whispered to him--'the one with the dimple.'

The lady and gentleman--she with her new charge wrapped in her warm shawl, and pressed closely to her bosom--walked briskly through the cold air towards their home, which lay in a square, about a mile from Stoney-alley. In the centre of the square was a garden, the wood-growth in which, though bare of leaves, looked as beautiful in their white mantle as ever they had done in their brightest summer. The snow-lined trees stood out boldly, yet gracefully, and their every branch, fringed in purest white, was an emblem of loveliness. They gleamed grandly in the moon's light, mute witnesses of the greatness of Him whose lightest work is an evidence of perfect wisdom and goodness.

[HOW SHE ACQUIRED THE NAME OF BLADE-O'-GRASS.]

Thus, whilst one little babe was tended and watched by benevolent hands and eyes, the fate of the other--the prettier one, she with the unfortunate dimple--was intrusted to the shapeless hands of chance. To such tender care as had happily fallen to its lot, the fortunate one may be left for a time. Turn we to the other, and watch its strange bringing-up.

Proverbially, too many cooks spoil the broth; and this forlorn babe was left to the care of too many cooks, who, however, in this instance, did not spoil the broth by meddling with it, but by almost utterly neglecting it. The landlady's declaration that 'We'll look after her between us; one'll take her one day, and one another,' although uttered in all sincerity, turned out badly in its application. What is everybody's business is nobody's business, and for the most part the babe was left to take care of herself. For a little while Mrs. Manning was the child's only friend; but in the course of a couple of months she fulfilled her husband's apprehension, and added another bantling to his already overstocked quiver. This new arrival (which, it must be confessed, was not received with gratitude by its father) was so fractious, and so besieged by a complication of infantile disorders, that all Mrs. Manning's spare moments were fully occupied, and she had none to devote to other people's children. The motherless child threatened to fare badly indeed. But now and again a mother who had lost her offspring came to the little stranger and suckled her; so that she drew life from many bosoms, and may be said to have had at least a score of wet-nurses. And thus she grew up almost literally in the gutters, no one owning her, no one really caring for her; and yet she throve, as weeds thrive--while her sister, not a mile away, throve, in the care of kind friends, as flowers thrive. Born in equality, with the same instincts for good and evil, with the same capacity for good and evil, equally likely to turn out good or bad, should it have been left entirely to chance that one might live to prove a blessing, and the other a curse, to society? But so it was.

One of the most curious circumstances connected with the little outcast was, that she was not known by any settled name. It grew to be a fashion to call her by all sorts of names--now Polly, now Sally, now Young Hussy, now Little Slut, and by a dozen others, not one of which remained to her for any length of time. But when she was three years of age, an event occurred which played the part of godmothers and godfathers to her, and which caused her to receive a title by which she was always afterwards known.

There was not a garden in Stoney-alley. Not within the memory of living man had a flower been known to bloom there. There were many poor patches of ground, crowded as the neighbourhood was, which might have been devoted to the cultivation of a few bright petals; but they were allowed to lie fallow, festering in the sun. Thought of graceful form and colour had never found expression there. Strange, therefore, that one year, when Summer was treading close upon the heel of Spring, sending warm sweet winds to herald her coming, there should spring up, in one of the dirtiest of all the backyards in Stoney-alley, two or three Blades of Grass. How they came there, was a mystery. No human hand was accountable for their presence. It may be that a bird, flying over the place, had mercifully dropped a seed; or that a kind wind had borne it to the spot. But however they came, there they were, these Blades of Grass, peeping up from the ground shyly and wonderingly, and giving promise of bright colour, even in the midst of the unwholesome surroundings. Our little castaway--she was no better--now three years of age, was sprawling in this dirty backyard with a few other children, all of them regular students of Dirt College. Attracted by the little bit of colour, she crawled to the spot where it shone in the light, and straightway fell to watching it and inhaling, quite unconsciously, whatever of grace it possessed. Once or twice she touched the tender blades, and seemed to be pleased to find them soft and pliant. The other children, delighted at having the monopoly of a gutter, that ran through the yard, did not disturb her; and so she remained during the day, watching and wondering; and fell asleep by the side of the Blades of Grass, and dreamed perhaps of brighter colours and more graceful forms than had ever yet found place in her young imagination. The next day she made her way again to the spot, and seeing that the blades had grown a little, wondered and wondered, and unconsciously exercised that innate sense of worship of the beautiful which is implanted in every nature, and which causes the merest babes to rejoice at light, and shapes of beauty, and harmony of sound. What is more wonderful, in the eyes of a babe, than vivid colour or light, however kindled? what more sweet to its senses than that perfect harmony of sound which falls upon its ears as the mother sings softly and lulls her darling to sleep? This latter blessing had never fallen to the lot of our child; but colour and light were given to her, and she was grateful for them. She grew to love these emerald leaves, and watched them day after day, until the women round about observed and commented upon her strange infatuation. But one evening, when the leaves were at their brightest and strongest, a man, running hastily through the yard, crushed the blades of grass beneath his heel, and tore them from the earth. The grief of the child was intense. She cast a passionate yet bewildered look at the man, and picking up the torn soiled blades, put them in the breast of her ragged frock, in the belief that warmth would bring them back to life. She went to bed with the mangled leaves in her hot hand, and when she looked at them the next morning, they bore no resemblance to the bright leaves which had been such a delight to her. She went to the spot where they had grown, and cried without knowing why; and the man who had destroyed the leaves happening to pass at the time, she struck at him with her little fists. He pushed her aside rather roughly with his foot, and Mrs. Manning, seeing this, and having also seen the destruction of the leaves, and the child's worship of them, blew him up for his unkindness. He merely laughed, and said he wouldn't have done it if he had looked where he was going, and that it was a good job for the child that she wasn't a Blade-o'-Grass herself, or she might have been trodden down with the others. The story got about the alley, and one and another, at first in fun or derision, began to call the child Little Blade-o'-Grass, until, in course of time, it came to be recognised as her regular name, and she was known by it all over the neighbourhood. So, being thus strangely christened, Little Blade-o'-Grass grew in years and in ignorance, and became a worthy member of Dirt College, in which school she was matriculated for the battle of life.

[THE LEGEND OF THE TIGER.]

At a very early age indeed was Blade-o'-Grass compelled to begin the battle of life. Her greatest misfortune was that, as she grew in years, she grew strong. Had she been a weakly little thing, some one might have taken pity on her, and assumed the responsibility of maintaining her. The contingency was a remote one; but all chance of benefiting by it was utterly destroyed, because she was strong and hardy. She may be said to have had some sort of a home up to the time that she attained the age of nine years; for a corner for her to sleep in was always found in the house in which she was born. But about that time certain important changes took place, which materially affected her, although she had no hand in them. The landlady gave up the house, and some one else took it, and turned it into a shop. The lodgers all received notice to leave, and went elsewhere to live. A great slice of luck fell to the share of Mr. Manning. An uncle whom he had never seen died in a distant land, and left his money to his relatives; and a shrewd lawyer made good pickings by hunting up nephews and nieces of the deceased. Among the rest, he hunted up Mr. Manning, and one day he handed his client a small sum of money. Mr. Manning put his suddenly acquired wealth to a good purpose--he got passage in a government emigrant ship, and with his wife and large family, bade good-bye for ever to Stoney-alley. He left the country, as hundreds and thousands of others have done, with a bitter feeling in his heart because he was not able to stop in it, and earn a decent livelihood; but, as hundreds and thousands of others have done, he lived this feeling down, and in his new home, with better prospects and better surroundings, talked of his native land--meaning Stoney-alley--as the 'old country,' in terms of affection and as if he had been treated well in it. It will be easily understood that when Blade-o'-Grass lost Mrs. Manning, she lost her best friend.

To say that she passed an easy life up to this point of her career would be to state what is false. The child was in continual disgrace, and scarcely a day passed that was not watered with her tears. Blows, smacks, and harsh words were administered to her freely, until she grew accustomed to them, and they lost their moral force. She deserved them, for she was the very reverse of a good little girl. In a great measure her necessities made her what she was, and no counteracting influence for good approached her. If she were sent for beer, she would stop at corners, and taste and sip, and bring home short measure. There was something fearful in her enjoyment; but she had no power nor desire to resist the temptation. No tragedy queen, before the consummation of the final horror, ever looked round with more watchful, wary, fearsome gaze than did Blade-o'-Grass, when, having nerved her soul to take a sip of beer, she stopped at a convenient corner, or in the shadow of a dark doorway, to put her desire into execution. And then she was always breaking things. The mugs she let fall would have paved Stoney-alley. But there was a greater temptation than beer: Bread. If she were sent for a half-quartern loaf, she would not fail to dig out with liberal fingers the soft portions between the crusts, and eagerly devour them. Even if she had not been hungry--which would have been a white-letter day in her existence--she would have done from habit what she almost invariably was urged to do by the cravings of her stomach. And about that unfortunate stomach of hers, calumnies were circulated and believed in. So persistent an eater was Blade-o'-Grass, so conscientious a devourer of anything that, legitimately or otherwise, came in her way--quality being not of the slightest object--that a story got about that she had 'something' in her inside, some living creature of a ravenous nature, that waited for the food as she swallowed it, and instantly devoured it for its own sustenance. Such things had been known of. At some remote period a girl in the neighbourhood--whose personality was never traced, but whom everybody believed in--had had such an animal--a few called it a 'wolf,' but the majority insisted that it was a 'tiger'--growing inside of her, and this animal, so the story went, grew and grew, and fed upon the girl's life till it killed her. The 'tiger' had been found alive after the girl's death, and having been purchased of some one for a fabulous price, was embalmed in a bottle in a great museum, of which nobody knew the name or the whereabouts. As an allegory, this 'tiger' might have served to illustrate the mournful story of the lives of Blade-o'-Grass and thousands of her comrades--it might have served, indeed, to point a bitter moral; but there was nothing allegorical about the inhabitants of Stoney-alley. They only dealt in hard matter-of-fact, and the mythical story was fully believed in; and being applied to the case of Blade-o'-Grass, became a great terror to her. Many persons found delight in tormenting the helpless child about her 'tiger,' and for a long time the slightest allusion to it was sufficient to cause her the most exquisite anguish, in consequence of certain malevolent declarations, that she ought to be cut open and have the tiger taken out of her. Indeed, one miserable old fellow, who kept a rag-shop, and who had in his window two or three dust-coated bottles containing common-place reptiles preserved in spirits-of-wine, took a malicious pleasure in declaring that the operation ought to be really performed upon Blade-o'-Grass, and that, in the interests of science, she ought not to be allowed to live. It was the cruelest of sport thus to torture the poor child; for the simple fact was, that Blade-o'-Grass was nearly always hungry. It was nature tugging at her stomach--not a tiger.

The very first night of Mrs. Manning's departure, Blade-o'-Grass found herself without a bed. With a weary wretched sense of desolation upon her, she lingered about the old spot where she used to sleep, and even ventured to enter at the back of the house, when the sharp 'Come, get out o' this!' of the new proprietor sent her flying away. She belonged to nobody, and nobody cared for her; so she wandered and lingered about until all the lights in the shops and houses were out. She had gleaned some small pleasure in watching these lights; she had found comfort in them; and when they were all extinguished and she was in darkness, she trembled under the impulse of a vague terror. She did not cry; it was not often now that she called upon the well of tender feeling where tears lay; but she was terrified. There was not a star in the sky to comfort her. She was in deep darkness, body and soul. How many others are there at this present moment in the same terrible condition?

Too full of fear to stand upright, she crept along the ground slowly, feeling her way by the walls, stopping every now and then to gather fresh courage, at which time she tried to shut out her fears by cowering close to the flagstones and hiding her face in her ragged frock. She had a purpose in view. She had thought of a refuge where she would find some relief from the terrible shadows. Towards that refuge she was creeping now. It was a long, long time before she reached her haven--a crazy old lamp-post, the dim light of which was in keeping with the general poverty of its surroundings. At the foot of this lamp-post, clasping it as if it were the symbol of a sacred refuge, Blade-o'-Grass looked up at the light in agony of speechless gratitude, and then, wearied almost to a state of unconsciousness, coiled herself up into a ball, like a hedgehog, and soon was fast asleep.

[THE BATTLE OF LIFE.]

What followed? Remorseless Time pursued his way, and the minutes, light to some, heavy to some, leaving in their track a train of woe and joy, and grief and happiness; the leaden minutes, the golden minutes, flew by until daylight came and woke the sleeping child. Unwashed--but that was her chronic condition, and did not affect her--forlorn, uncared-for, Blade-o'-Grass looked round upon her world, and rubbed her eyes, and yawned; then, after a time, rose to her feet, and cast quick eager glances about her. The tiger in her stomach was awake and stirring, and Blade-o'-Grass had no food to give it to satisfy its cravings. She prowled up and down, and round and about the dirty courts, in search of something to eat; anything would have more than contented her--mouldy crust, refuse food; but the stones of Stoney-alley and its fellows were merciless, and no manna fell from heaven to bless the famished child. She would have puzzled the wisest philosopher in social problems, if he were not utterly blinded by theory; for, looking at her from every aspect, and taking into account, not only that she was endowed with mental, moral, and physical faculties, but that she was a human being with a soul 'to be saved,' he could have produced but one result from her--a yearning for food. He could have struck no other kind of fire from out of this piece of flint. What resemblance did Blade-o'-Grass bear to that poetical image which declared her to be noble in reason, infinite in faculty, express and admirable in form and bearing; like an angel in action; like a god in apprehension? The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! Perhaps it will be best for us not to examine too curiously, for there is shame in the picture of this child-girl prowling about for food. Poor Blade-o'-Grass! with every minute the tiger in her stomach grew more rabid, and tore at her vitals tigerishly. In the afternoon she found a rotten apple in the gutter, and she stooped and picked it up, joy glistening in her eyes. It was a large apple, fortunately, and she devoured it eagerly, and afterwards chewed the stalk. That was all the food she got that day; and when night came, and she had watched the lights out, she coiled herself up into a ball by the side of her lamp-post again and slept, and awoke in the morning, sick with craving. Yesterday's experience whispered to her not to look about for food in Stoney-alley; and she walked, with painful steps into the wider thoroughfare, and stopped for a few minutes to recover herself from her astonishment at the vast world in which she found herself. She would have been content to stop there all the day, but that the tiger cried for food, and she cried for food in sympathy with the tiger. Keeping her eyes fixed upon the ground, and never once raising her pitiful face to the faces that flashed past her, hither and thither, she faltered onwards for a hundred yards or so, and then, in a frightened manner, retraced her steps, so that she should not lose herself. 'Give me food!' cried the tiger, and 'Give me food!' cried Blade-o'-Grass from the innermost depths of her soul. At about ten o'clock in the morning, her cry was answered; she saw a cats'-meat man with a basket full of skewered meat hanging upon his arm. Instinctively she followed him, and watched the cats running to the doors at the sound of his voice, and waiting with arched backs and dilating eyes for his approach. Blade-o'-Grass wished with all her heart and soul that she were a cat, so that she might receive her portion upon a skewer; but no such happiness was hers. She followed the man wistfully and hungeringly, until he stopped at the door of a house where there were evidently arrears of account to be settled. He placed his basket upon the doorstep, and went into the passage to give some change to the woman of the house. Here was an opportunity for Blade-o'-Grass. She crept stealthily and fearfully towards the basket, and snatching up two portions of cats'-meat, ran for her life, with her stolen food hidden in her tattered frock--ran until she reached Stoney-alley, where she sank to the ground with her heart leaping at her throat, and where, after recovering her breath, she devoured her ill-gotten meat with unbounded satisfaction. She had no idea that she had done a wrong thing. She was hungry, and had simply taken food when the opportunity presented itself. The fear by which she had been impressed had not sprung from any moral sense, but partly from the thought that the man would hurt her if he caught her taking his property, and partly from the thought (more agonising than the other) that she might be prevented from carrying out her design. The next day she watched for and followed the cats'-meat man again, and again was successful in obtaining a meal; and so on for a day or two afterwards. But the food was not over nice, and the tiger whispered to her that a change would be agreeable. Success made her bold, and she looked about her for other prey. Her first venture, after the cats'-meat man lost her patronage, was an old woman who kept an apple-stall, and who went to sleep as regularly as clockwork every afternoon at three o'clock and woke at five. But even in her sleep this old apple-woman seemed to be wary, and now and then would mumble out with drowsy energy, 'Ah, would yer? I sees yer!' as if the knowledge that she was surrounded by suspicious characters whose mouths watered for her fruit had eaten into her soul. But as these exclamations to terrify poachers were mumbled out when the old woman really was in an unconscious state, she fell an easy victim to Blade-o'-Grass. She was a great treasure to the little girl, for she dealt in nuts and oranges as well as apples. Then there was a woman who sold a kind of cake designated 'jumbles,'--a wonderful luxury, price four a penny. She also fell a victim, and between one and another Blade-o'-Grass managed to pick up a precarious living, and in a few months became as nimble and expert a little thief as the sharpest policeman would wish to make an example of. She was found out, of course, sometimes, and was cuffed and beaten; but she was never given in charge. The persons from whom she stole seemed to be aware of the hapless condition of the child, and had mercy upon her; indeed, many of them had at one time or another of their lives known what it was to suffer the pangs of hunger.

Incredible as it may sound, Blade-o'-Grass still had one friend left. His name was Tom Beadle. He was some five years older than Blade-o'-Grass, but looked so delicate and sickly, and was of such small proportions, that they might have been taken for pretty nearly the same age. Delicate and sickly as he looked, he was as sharp as a weasel. He had a mother and a father, who, when they were not in prison, lived in Stoney-alley, but they--being a drunken and dissolute pair--did not trouble themselves about their son. So he had to shift for himself, and in course of time became cunningest of the cunning. Between him and Blade-o'-Grass there had grown a closer intimacy than she had contracted with any other of her associates, and whenever they met they stopped to have a chat Blade-o'-Grass had a genuine affection for him, for he had often given her a copper, and quite as often had shared his meal with her.

A few months after the change for the worse in the prospects of Blade-o'-Grass, Tom Beadle, lounging about in an idle humour, saw her sitting on the kerb-stone with her eyes fixed upon the old apple-woman, who had begun to nod. There was something in the gaze of Blade-o'-Grass that attracted Tom Beadle's attention, and he set himself to watch. Presently the girl shifted a little nearer to the fruit-stall--a little nearer--nearer, until she was quite close. Her hand stole slowly towards the fruit, and a pear was taken, then another. Tom Beadle laughed; but looked serious immediately afterwards, for Blade-o'-Grass was running away as fast as her legs could carry her. Assuring himself that there was no cause for alarm, Tom Beadle ran after her, and placed his hand heavily on her shoulder. She had heard the step behind her, and her heart almost leaped out of her throat; but when she felt the hand upon her shoulder, she threw away the stolen fruit, and fell to the ground in an agony of fear.

'Git up, you little fool,' exclaimed Tom Beadle. 'What are you frightened at?' Before he said this, however, he picked up the pears and put them in his pocket.

'O, Tom!' cried Blade-o'-Grass, the familiar tones falling upon her ears like sweetest music; 'I thought it was somebody after me.'

Then Tom told her that he ran after her to stop her running, and instructed her that it was the very worst of policy, after she had 'prigged' anything, to run away when nobody was looking. And this was the first practical lesson in morals that Blade-o'-Grass had received.

'But, I say, Bladergrass,' observed Tom, 'I didn't know as you'd taken to prig.'

'I can't help it, Tom. The tiger's always at me.'

Tom implicitly believed in the tiger story.

'Well, that's all right,' said Tom; 'only take care--and don't you run away agin when nobody's a-lookin'.'

Months passed, and Blade-o'-Grass lived literally from hand to mouth. But times grew very dull; her hunting-ground was nearly worked out, and she was more often hungry than not. One day she hadn't been able to pick up a morsel of food, and had had insufficient for many previous days. The day before she had had but one scanty meal, so that it is not difficult to imagine her miserable condition. Her guardian angel, Tom Beadle, discovered her crouching against a wall, with fear and despair in her face and eyes. He knew well enough what was the matter, but he asked her for form's sake, and she returned him the usual answer, while the large tears rolled down her cheeks into her mouth.

It so happened that Tom Beadle had been out of luck that day. He hadn't a copper in his pocket. He felt about for one, nevertheless, and finding none, whistled--curiously enough, the 'Rogues' March'--more in perplexity than from surprise.

'Ain't yer had anythink to eat, Bladergrass?'

'Not a blessed bite,' was the answer.

It was about five o'clock in the evening; there were at least a couple of hours to sunset. An inspiration fell upon Tom Beadle, and his countenance brightened.

'Come along o' me,' he said.

Blade-o'-Grass placed her hand unhesitatingly in his, and they walked towards the wealthier part of the City, until they came to a large space surrounded by great stone buildings. In the centre of the space was a statue. Blade-o'-Grass had never been so far from her native place as this. The crowds of people hurrying hither and thither, as if a moment's hesitation would produce, a fatal result; the apparently interminable strings of carts and cabs and wagons and omnibuses issuing from half-a-dozen thoroughfares, and so filling the roads with moving lines and curves and angles, that it seemed to be nothing less than miraculous how a general and disastrous crash was avoided, utterly bewildered little Blade-o'-Grass, and caused her for a moment to be oblivious of the cravings of the tiger in her stomach.

'Now, look 'ere, Bladergrass,' whispered Tom Beadle: 'you keep tight 'old of my 'and; if anybody arks yer, I'm yer brother a-dyin' of consumption. I'm a-dyin' by inches, I am.'

Forthwith he called into his face such an expression of utter, helpless woe and misery, that Blade-o'-Grass cried out in terror,

'O, what's up, Tom? O, don't, Tom, don't!' really believing that her companion had been suddenly stricken.

'Don't be stoopid!' remonstrated Tom, smiling at her to reassure her, and then resuming his wobegone expression; 'I'm only a-shammin'.'

With that he sank upon the bottom of a grand flight of stone steps, dragging Blade-o'-Grass down beside him. There they remained, silent, for a few moments, and perhaps one in a hundred of the eager bustling throng turned to give the strange pair a second glance; but before sympathy had time to assume practical expression, a policeman came up to them, and bade them move on. Tom rose to his feet, wearily and painfully, and slowly moved away: a snail in its last minutes of life could scarcely have moved more slowly, if it had moved at all. He took good care to keep tight hold of the hand of Blade-o'-Grass, lest she should be pushed from him and be lost in the crowd. A notable contrast were these two outcasts--she, notwithstanding her fright and the pangs of hunger by which she was tormented, strong-limbed and sturdy for her age; and he drooping, tottering, with a death-look upon his face, as if every moment would be his last. You would have supposed that his mind was a blank to all but despair, and that he was praying for death; but the cunning and hypocrisy of Tom Beadle were not to be measured by an ordinary standard. He was as wide awake as a weasel, and although his eyes were to the ground, he saw everything that surged around him, and was as ready to take advantage of an opportunity as the sharpest rascal in London. As he and his companion made their way through the busy throng, they attracted the attention of two men--both of them elderly men, of some sixty years of age; one, well-dressed, with a bright eye and a benevolent face; the other, poorly but not shabbily dressed, and with a face out of which every drop of the milk of human kindness seemed to have been squeezed when he was a young man. When he looked at you, it appeared as if you were undergoing the scrutiny of two men; for one of his eyes had a dreadfully fixed and glassy stare in it, and the other might have been on fire, it was so fiercely watchful.

Now, overpowered as Tom Beadle might have been supposed to be in his own special ills and cares, he saw both these men, as he saw everything else about him, and a sly gleam of recognition passed from his eyes to the face of the odd-looking and poorly-dressed stranger; it met with no response, however. The next moment Tom raised his white imploring face to that of the better-dressed man, whose tender heart was stirred by pity at the mute appeal. He put his hand in his pocket, but seemed to be restrained from giving; some impulse within him whispered, 'Don't!' while his heart prompted him to give. But the struggle was not of long duration. The words, 'Indiscriminate charity again,' fell from his lips, and looking round cautiously as if he were about to commit a felony, he hastily approached close to the two children, and, with an air of guilt, slipped a shilling in Tom Beadle's hand. After which desperate deed, he turned to fly from the spot, when he saw something in the face of the odd-looking man (who had been watching the comedy with curious interest) which made him first doubtful, then angry. Although they were strangers, he was impelled to speak, and his kind nature made him speak in a polite tone.

'Dreadful sight, sir, dreadful sight,' he said, pointing to the creeping forms of Tom Beadle and Blade-o'-Grass. 'A penny can't be thrown away there, eh?'

The odd-looking man shrugged his shoulders. The shrug conveyed to the benevolent stranger this meaning: 'You are an imbecile; you are an old fool; you are not fit to be trusted alone.' It was the most expressive of shrugs.

'I suppose you mean to say I've been imposed upon,' exclaimed the benevolent stranger hotly.

The odd-looking man chuckled enjoyably, and perked up his head at the questioner in curiosity, as a magpie with its eye in a blaze might have done. But he said nothing. His silence exasperated the benevolent almsgiver, who exclaimed, 'You've no humanity, sir; no humanity;' and turned on his heel. But turned round again immediately and said, 'I've no right to say that, sir--no right, and I beg your pardon. But d'ye mean to tell me that that lad is an impostor, sir? If you do, I deny it, sir, I deny it! D'ye mean to say that I've been taken in, and that those two children are not--not HUNGRY, sir?'

Some words seemed to be rising to the odd-looking man's lips, but he restrained the utterance of them, and closed his lips with a snap. He touched his shabby cap with an air of amusement, and turned away, chuckling quietly; and the next minute the two men were struggling in different directions with the human tide that spread itself over all the City.

In the mean time, Tom Beadle, keeping up the fiction of 'dyin' by inches,' crept slowly away. He had not seen the coin which had been slipped into his hand, but he knew well enough by the feel that it was a shilling. 'A regular slice o' luck,' he muttered to himself, beneath his breath. When they had crept on some fifty yards, he quickened his steps, and Blade-o'-Grass tried to keep up with him. But all at once her hands grew quite cold, and a strong trembling took possession of her.

'Come along, Bladergrass,' urged Tom, in his anxiety to get safely away; ''ow you creep!'

The child made another effort, but, as if by magic, the streets and the roar in them vanished from her sight and hearing, and she would have fallen to the ground, but for Tom's arm thrown promptly round her poor fainting form.

Near to them was a quiet court--so still and peaceful that it might have hidden in a country-place where Nature was queen--and Tom Beadle, who knew every inch of the ground, bore her thither. His heart grew cold as he gazed upon her white face.

'I wish I may die,' he muttered to himself, in a troubled voice, 'if she don't look as if she was dead. Bladergrass! Bladergrass!' he called.'

She did not answer him. Not a soul was near them. Had it not been that he liked the child, and that, little villain as he was, he had some humanity in him--for her at least--he would have run away. He stood quiet for a few moments, debating within himself what he had best do. He knelt over her, and put his lips to hers, and whispered coaxingly, 'Come along, Bladergrass. Don't be a little fool. Open your eyes, and call Tom.'

The warmth of his face and lips restored her to consciousness. She murmured, 'Don't--don't! Let me be!'

'What's the matter, Bladergrass?' he whispered. 'It's me--Tom! Don't you know me?'

'O, let me be, Tom!' implored Blade-o'-Grass. 'Let me be! The tiger's a-eatin' the inside out o' me, and I'm a-dyin'.'

She closed her eyes again, and the sense of infinite peace that stole upon her, as she lay in this quiet court, was like heaven to her, after the wild roar of steps and sounds in which a little while since she had been engulfed. Had she died at that moment, it would have been happier for her; but at whose door could her death have been laid?

Tom Beadle, whispering hurriedly and anxiously, and certainly quite superfluously, 'Lay still, Bladergrass! I'll be back in a minute,' ran off to buy food, and soon returned with it. He had a little difficulty in rousing her, but when she began to taste the food, and, opening her eyes, saw the store which Tom had brought, she tore at it almost deliriously, crying out of thankfulness, as she ate. Tom was sufficiently rewarded by seeing the colour return to her cheeks; before long, Blade-o'-Grass was herself again, and was laughing with Tom.

'But I thought you was a-dyin', Bladergrass,' said Tom, somewhat solemnly, in the midst of the merriment.

'No, it was you that was a-dyin', Tom!' exclaimed Blade-o'-Grass, clapping her hands. 'A-dyin' by inches, you know!'

Gratified vanity gleamed in Tom Beadle's eyes, and when Blade-o'-Grass added, 'But, O Tom, how you frightened me at first!' his triumph was complete, and he enjoyed an artist's sweetest pleasure. Then he gloated over the imposition he had practised upon the benevolent stranger, and cried in glee,

'Wasn't he green, Bladergrass? He thought I was dyin' by inches, as well as you. O, O, O!' and laughed and danced, to the admiration of Blade-o'-Grass, without feeling a particle of gratitude for the benevolent instinct which had saved his companion from starvation.

After this fashion did Blade-o'-Grass learn life's lessons, and learn to fight its battles. Deprived of wholesome teaching and wholesome example; believing, from very necessity, that bad was good; without any knowledge of God and His infinite goodness, she, almost a baby-child, went out into the world, in obedience to the law of nature, in search of food. A slice of bread-and-butter was more to her than all the virtues, the exercise of which, as we are taught, bestows the light of eternal happiness. And yet, if earnest men are to be believed, and if there be truth in newspaper columns, the vast machinery around her was quick with sympathy for her, as one of a class whom it is man's duty to lift from the dust. Such struggles for the amelioration (fine word!) of the human race were being made by earnest natures, that it was among the most awful mysteries of the time, how Blade-o'-Grass was allowed to grow up in the ignorance which deprives crime of responsibility; how she was forced to be dead to the knowledge of virtue; how she was compelled to earn the condemnation of men, and to make sorrowful the heart of the Supreme!

[MR. MERRYWHISTLE RELIEVES HIMSELF ON THE SUBJECT OF INDISCRIMINATE CHARITY.]

The name of the man who gave Tom Beadle the shilling was Merrywhistle. He was a bachelor, and he lived in the eastern part of the City, in Buttercup-square, next door to his best friends, the Silvers. Although Buttercup-square was in the east of the City, where the greatest poverty is to be found, and where people crowd upon each other unhealthfully, it was as pretty and comfortable a square as could be found anywhere; and you might live in any house in it and fancy yourself in the country, when you looked out of window. The trees in the square were full of birds' nests, and the singing of the birds of a summer morning was very sweet to the ear.

Mr. Merrywhistle had no trade or profession. When the last census was taken, and the paper was given to him to fill-in, he set himself down as 'Nothing Particular,' and this eccentric definition of himself coming under the eyes of his landlady--who, like every other landlady, was mighty curious about the age, religion, and occupation of her lodgers, and whether they were single, widowed, or divorced men--was retailed by her to her friends. As a necessary consequence, her friends retailed the information to their friends; and for some little time afterwards, they used to ask of the landlady and of each other, jocosely, how Nothing Particular was getting along, and whether he had lately done Anything Particular; and so on. But this mildest of jokes soon died out, and never reached Mr. Merrywhistle's ears. He had an income more than sufficient for his personal wants; but at the year's end not a shilling remained of his year's income. A pale face, a look of distress, a poor woman with a baby in arms, a person looking hungrily in a cook-shop window--any one of these sights was sufficient to melt his benevolent heart, and to draw copper or silver from his pocket. It was said of him that his hands were always in his pockets--a saying which was the occasion of a piece of sarcasm, which grew into a kind of proverb. A lady-resident of Buttercup-square, whose husband was of the parsimonious breed, when speaking of Mr. Merrywhistle's benevolence, said, with a sigh, 'My husband is just like Mr. Merrywhistle; his hands are always in his pockets.' 'Yes, ma'am,' said an ill-natured friend, 'but there the similarity ends. Your husband's hands never come out.' Which produced a lifelong breach between the parties.

Mr. Merrywhistle was in a very disturbed mood this evening. He was haunted by the face of the old man who had been amused, because he had given a poor child, a shilling. The thought of this old man proved the most obstinate of tenants to Mr. Merrywhistle; having got into his mind, it refused to be dislodged. He had never seen this man before, and here, in the most unaccountable manner, he being haunted and distressed by a face which presented itself to his imagination with a mocking expression upon it, because he had been guilty of a charitable act. 'I should like to meet him again,' said Mr. Merrywhistle to himself; 'I'd talk to him!' Which mild determination, hotly expressed, was intended to convey an exceedingly severe meaning. As he could not dislodge the thought of the man from his mind, Mr. Merrywhistle resolved to go to his friends next door, the Silvers, and take tea with them. He went in, and found them, as he expected, just sitting down to tea. Only two of them, husband and wife.

'I am glad you have come in,' said Mrs. Silver to him. Her voice might surely have suggested her name, it was so mild and gentle. But everything about her was the same. Her dress, her quiet manner, her delicate face, her hands, her eyes, where purity dwelt, breathed peace and goodness. She and her sisters (and there are many, thank God!) are the human pearls of the world which is so often called 'erring.'

'How are the youngsters?' asked Mr. Merrywhistle, stirring his tea.

'All well,' answered Mr. Silver; 'you'll stay and see them?'

Mr. Merrywhistle nodded, and proceeded with his tea. The meal being nearly over, Mrs. Silver said, 'Now, friend, tell us your trouble.'

'You see it in my face,' responded Mr. Merrywhistle.

'Yes; I saw it when you entered.'

'You have the gift of divination.'

'Say, the gift of sympathy for those I love.'

Mr. Merrywhistle held out his hand, and she grasped it cordially. Then he told them of the occurrence that took place on the Royal Exchange, and of the singular manner in which he was haunted by the mocking face of the old man who had watched him.

'You have an instinct, perhaps,' said Mrs. Silver, 'that he was one of the men who might have preached at you, if he had had the opportunity, against indiscriminate charity?'

'No, I don't know, I don't know, I really don't know,' replied Mr. Merrywhistle excitedly. 'I think he rather enjoyed it; he seemed to look upon it as an amusing exhibition, for he was almost convulsed by laughter. Laughter! It wasn't laughter. It was a series of demoniac chuckles, that's what it was--demoniac chuckles. But I can't exactly describe what it was that set my blood boiling. It wasn't his demoniac chuckling alone, it was everything about him; his manner, his expression, his extraordinary eyes; one of which looked like the eye of an infuriated bull, as if it were half inclined to fly out of its head at you, and the other as if it were the rightful property of the meekest and mildest of baa-lambs. Then his eye-brows--lapping over as if they were precipices, and as thick as blacking-brushes. Then his face, like a little sour and withered apple. Your pro-indiscriminate-charity men would not have behaved as he did. They would have asked me. How dare I--how dare I?--yes, that is what they would have said--How dare I encourage pauperism by giving money to little boys and girls and ragged men and women, whom I have never seen in my life before, whom I have never heard of in my life before? This fellow wasn't one of them. No, no--no, I say, he wasn't one of them. I wouldn't swear that he wasn't drunk--no, I won't say that; tipsy, perhaps--no, nor that either. Uncharitable of me--very. Don't laugh at me. You wouldn't have laughed at the poor little boy if you had seen him.'

'I am sure we should not.'

'That's like me again,' cried the impetuous old bachelor remorsefully; 'throwing in the teeth of my best friends an accusation of inhumanity--yes, inhumanity--positive inhumanity. Forgive me--I am truly sorry. But that indiscriminate-charity question cropped up again to-day, and that, as well as this affair, has set my nerves in a jingle. A gentleman called upon me this morning, and asked me for a subscription towards the funds of an institution--a worthy institution, as I believe. I hadn't much to spare--I am so selfishly extravagant that my purse is always low--and I gave him half-a-sovereign. He took it, and looked at it and at me reproachfully. "I was given to understand," he said in the meekest of voices, so meek, indeed, that I could hot possibly take offence--"I was given to understand that from Mr. Merrywhistle, and in aid of such an institution as ours, I should have received a much larger contribution."'

'That savoured of impertinence,' observed Mr. Silver.

'I daresay, Silver, I daresay. Another man might have thought so; but I couldn't possibly be angry with him, his manner was so humble--reproachfully humble. I explained to him that at present I couldn't afford more, and that, somehow or other, my money melted away most surprisingly. "I hope, sir," he then said, "that what I was told of you is not true, and that you are not in the habit of giving away money indiscriminately." I could not deny it--no, indeed, I could not deny it--and I commenced to say, hesitatingly (feeling very guilty), that now and then---- But he interrupted me with, "Now and then, sir!--now and then! You will pardon my saying so, Mr. Merrywhistle, but it may not have struck you before that those persons who give away money indiscriminately are making criminals for us--are filling our prisons--are blowing a cold blast on manly self-endeavour--are crippling industry--are paying premiums to idleness, which is the offspring of the----hem!" And continued in this strain for more than five minutes. When he went away, my hair stood on end, and I felt as if sentence ought to be pronounced upon me at once. And here, this very afternoon, am I caught again by a pitiful face--you should have seen it! I thought the poor boy would have died as I looked at him--and I give away a shilling, indiscriminately. Then comes this strange old fellow staring at me--sneering at me, shrugging his shoulders at me, and walking away with the unmistakable declaration--though he didn't declare it in words--that I wasn't fit to be trusted alone. As perhaps I'm not,--as perhaps I'm not!' And Mr. Merrywhistle blew his nose violently.

His friends knew him too well to interrupt him. The tea-things had been quietly cleared away, while he was relieving his feelings. He had by this time got rid of a great portion of his excitement; and now, in his cooler mood, he looked round and smiled. At that moment a lad of about fifteen years of age entered the room. All their countenances brightened, as also did his, as he entered.

'Well, Charley,' said Mr. Merrywhistle, as the lad, with frank face, stood before him, 'been knocking anything into "pie" to-day?'

'No, sir,' replied Charley. 'I'm past that now; I'm getting along handsomely, the overseer said.'

'That's right, my boy; that's right. You'll be overseer yourself, some day.'

Charley blushed; his ambition had not yet reached that height of desire, and it seemed almost presumption to him to look so far ahead. The overseer in the printing-office where Charley was apprenticed was a great man in Charley's eyes; his word was law to fifty men and boys. The lad turned to Mr. Silver, and said in a pleased tone:

'A new apprentice came in today, and swept out the office instead of me.'

'So you are no longer knight of the broom?

'No, sir, and I'm not sorry for it; and there's something else. Dick Trueman, you know, sir--'

'You told us, Charley; he was out of his time last week, and they gave him a frame as a regular journeyman.'

'Yes, sir; and he earnt thirty-four shillings last week--full wages. And what do you think he did today, sir?' And Charley's bright eyes sparkled more brightly. These small items of office-news were of vast importance to Charley--almost as important as veritable history. 'But you couldn't guess,' he continued, in an eager tone. 'He asked for three hours' holiday--from eleven till two--and he went out and got married!'

'Bless my soul!' exclaimed Mr. Merrywhistle, 'he can't be much more than twenty-one years of age.'

'Only a few weeks more, sir. But he's a man now. Well, he came back at two o'clock, in a new suit of clothes, and a flower in his coat. All the men knew, directly they saw him, that he had asked for the three hours' holiday to get married in. And they set up such a clattering--rattling on their cases with their sticks, and on the stone with the mallets and planers--that you couldn't hear your own voice for five minutes; for every one of us likes Dick Trueman. You should have seen Dick blush, when he heard the salute! He tried to make them believe that he didn't know what all the clattering was about. But they kept it up so long, that he was obliged to come to the stone and bob his head at us. It makes me laugh only to think of it. And then the overseer shook hands with him, and Dick sent for three cans of beer, and all the men drank his health and good luck to him.' Charley paused to take breath. The simple story, as he told it in his eager way, was a pleasant story to hear. Now came the most important part of it Charley's eyes grew larger as he said, with much importance, 'I saw her.'

'Who?' they asked.

'Dick's wife; she was waiting at the corner of the street for him--and O, she's Beautiful!'

'Quite a day of excitement, Charley,' said Mr. Silver.

'There's something more, sir.'

'What is it, Charley?'

'Our wayz-goose comes off next week, sir.'

'Yes, Charley.'

'Only two of the apprentices are asked, and I'm one of them,' said Charley, with a ring of pardonable pride in his voice. 'May I go?

'Certainly, my boy,' said Mr. Silver. And Mrs. Silver smiled approvingly, and told Charley to run and wash himself and have tea; and Charley gave them all a bright look, and went out of the room as happy a boy as any in all London.

Then said Mr. Merrywhistle:

'Charley's a good lad.'

'He's our first and eldest,' said Mrs. Silver, bringing forward a basket filled with socks and stockings wanting repair; 'he will be a bright man.'

Mr. Merrywhistle nodded, and they talked of various subjects until the sound of children's happy voices interrupted them. 'Here are our youngsters,' he said, rubbing his hands joyously; and as he spoke a troop of children came into the room.

[MRS. SILVER'S HOME.]

There were five of them, as follows:

The eldest, Charles, the printer's apprentice, fifteen years of age--with a good honest face and a bright manner. The picture of a happy boy.

Then Mary, fourteen years. She looked older than Charley, and, young as she was, seemed to have assumed a kind of matronship over the younger branches. That the position was a pleasing one to her and all of them was evident by the trustful looks that passed between them.

Then Richard, twelve years; with dancing eyes, open mouth, and quick, impetuous, sparkling manner--filled with electricity--never still for a moment together; hands, eyes, and every limb imbued with restlessness.

Then Rachel, eleven years; with pale face and eyes--so strangely watchful of every sound, that it might almost have been supposed she listened with them. She was blind, and unless her attention were aroused, stood like a statue waiting for the spark of life.

Lastly, Ruth. A full-faced, round-eyed child, the prettiest of the group. Slightly wilful, but of a most affectionate disposition.

Rachel inclined her head.

'There's some one here,' she said.

'Who, my dear?' asked Mrs. Silver, holding up a warning finger to Mr. Merrywhistle, so that he should not speak.

Rachel heard his light breathing.

'Mr. Merrywhistle,' she said, and went near to him. He kissed her, and she went back to her station by the side of Ruth.

They were a pleasant bunch of human flowers to gaze at, and so Mr. and Mrs. Silver and Mr. Merrywhistle thought, for their eyes glistened at the healthful sight. Ruth and Rachel stood hand in hand, and it was easily to be seen that they were necessary to each other. But pleasant as the children were to the sight, a stranger would have been struck with amazement at their unlikeness to one another. Brothers and sisters they surely could not be, although their presence there and their bearing to each other betokened no less close a relationship. They were not indeed related by blood, neither to one another, nor to Mr. and Mrs. Silver. They were Mrs. Silver's foundlings--children of her love, whom she had taken, one by one, to rear as her own, whom she had snatched from the lap of Destitution.

Her marriage was one of purest affection, but she was barren; and after a time, no children coming, she felt a want in her home. Her husband was secretary in a sound assurance office, and they possessed means to rear a family. Before their marriage, they had both dwelt in thought upon the delight and pure pleasure in store for them, and after their marriage she saw baby-faces in her dreams. She mused: 'My husband's son will be a good man, like his father, and we shall train him well, and he will be a pride to us.' And he: 'In my baby daughter I shall see my wife from her infancy, and I shall watch her grow to girlhood, to pure womanhood, and shall take delight in her, for that she is ours, the offspring of our love.' But these were dreams. No children came; and his wife still dreamt of her shadow-baby, and yearned to clasp it to her bosom. Years went on--they had married when they were young--and her yearning was unsatisfied. Pain entered into her life; a dull envy tormented her, when she thought of homes made happy by children's prattle, and her tears flowed easily at the sight of children. Her husband, engrossed all the day in the duties and anxieties of his business, had less time to brood over the deprivation, although he mourned it in his leisure hours; but she, being always at home, and having no stern labour to divert her thoughts from the sad channel in which they seemed quite naturally to run, mourned with so intense a grief, that it took possession of her soul and threatened to make her life utterly unhappy. One day he awoke to this, and quietly watched her; saw the wistful looks she cast about her, unaware that she was being observed; felt tears flowing from her eyes at night. He questioned her, and learnt that her grief and disappointment were eating into her heart; that, strive as she would, her life was unhappy in its loneliness while he was away, and that the sweetest light of home was wanting.

'I see baby-faces in my dreams,' she said to him one night, 'and hear baby-voices--so sweet, O, so sweet!' She pressed him in her arms, and laid his head upon her breast. 'And when I wake, I grieve.'

'Dear love,' he said, all the tenderness of his nature going out in his words, 'God wills it so.'

'I know, I know, my love,' she answered, her tears still flowing.

'How can I fill up the void in her life?' he thought, and gave expression to his thought.

Then she reproached herself, and asked his forgiveness, and cried, in remorse, 'How could she, how could she grieve him with her sorrow?'

'I have a right to it,' he answered. 'It is not all yours, my dear. Promise me, you in whom all my life's cares and joys are bound, never to conceal another of your griefs from me.'

She promised, and was somewhat comforted. This was within a couple of months of Christmas. A few nights before Christmas, as he was walking home, having been detained later than usual at his office, he came upon a throng of people talking eagerly with one another, and crowding round something that was hidden from his sight. It was bitterly cold, and the snow lay deep. He knew that nothing of less import than a human cause could have drawn that concourse together, and could have kept them bound together on such a night, and while the snow was falling heavily. He pushed his way through the crowd to the front, and saw a policeman gazing stupidly upon two forms lying on the ground. One was a man--dead; the other a baby--alive in the dead man's arms. He had them--the living and the dead--conveyed to the station-house; inquiries were set afoot; an inquest was held. Nothing was learnt of the man; no one knew anything of him; no one remembered having ever seen him before; and the mystery of his life was sealed by his death. He told his wife the sad story, and kept her informed of the progress, or rather the non-progress, of the inquiry. The man was buried, and was forgotten by all but the Silvers. Only one person attended the parish funeral as mourner, and that was Mr. Silver, who was urged to the act by a feeling of humanity.

'The poor baby? said Mrs. Silver, when he came from the funeral--'what will become of it?'

In the middle of the night she told her husband that she had dreamt of the baby. 'It stretched out its little arms to me.'

Her husband made no reply; but a few nights afterwards, having arranged with the parish authorities, he brought home the child, and placed it in his wife's arms. Her heart warmed to it immediately. A new delight took possession of her; the maternal instinct, though not fully satisfied, was brought into play. During the evening she said, 'How many helpless orphans are there round about us, and we are childless!' And then again, looking up tenderly from the babe in her lap to her husband's face, 'Perhaps this is the reason why God has given us no children.'

From this incident sprang the idea of helping the helpless; and year after year an orphan child was adopted, until they had six, when their means were lessened, and they found they could take no more. Then Mr. Merrywhistle stepped in, and gave sufficient to lift another babe from Desolation's lap. This last was twin-sister to Blade-o'-Grass, and they named her Ruth. From this brief record we pass to the present evening, when all the children are assembled in Mrs. Silver's house in Buttercup-square.

Some little time is spent in merry chat--much questioning of the children by Mr. Merrywhistle, who is a great favourite with them, and to whom such moments as these are the sweetest in his life. Charley tells over again the stirring incidents of the day, and they nod their heads, and laugh, and clap their hands, and cluster round him. Charley is their king.

'Come, children, sit down,' presently says Mr. Silver.

They sit round the table, Charley at the head, next to Mrs. Silver; then come Ruth and Rachel, with hands clasped beneath the tablecloth; then Mary and Richard. Mr. Silver produces a book; they hold their breaths. The blind girl knows that the book is on the table, and her fingers tighten upon Ruth's, and all her ears are in her eyes. It is a study to watch the varying shades of expression upon her face. As Mr. Silver opens the book you might hear a pin drop. Ruth nestles closer to Rachel, and Charley rises in his excitement. Mr. Merrywhistle sits in the armchair, and as he looks round upon the happy group, is as happy as the happiest among them. It is the custom every evening (unless pressing duties intervene) to read a chapter of a good work of fiction, and the reading-hour is looked forward to with eager delight by all the children. Last week they finished the Vicar of Wakefield, and this week they are introduced to the tender romance of Paul and Virginia. The selection of proper books is a grave task, and is always left to Mrs. Silver, who sometimes herself reads aloud.

'Where did we leave off last night, children?' asks Mr. Silver.

'Where Madame de la Tour receives a letter from her aunt,' answers Mary.

'Yes, from her spiteful old aunt,' adds Richard, 'and where Paul stamps his feet and wants to know who it is that has made Virginia's mother unhappy.'

A 'Hush-sh-sh!' runs round the table; and Mr. Silver commences the beautiful chapter where Virginia gives food to the poor slave woman, and induces her master to pardon her. With what eagerness do the children listen to how Paul and Virginia are lost in the woods! They gather cresses with the young lovers, and they help Paul set fire to the palm-tree, and they see the Three Peaks in the distance. Then they come to the famous part where Paul and Virginia stand by the banks of a river, the waters of which roll foaming over a bed of rocks. 'The noise of the water frightened Virginia, and she durst not wade through the stream; Paul therefore took her up in his arms, and went thus loaded over the slippery rocks, which formed the bed of the river, careless of the tumultuous noise of its waters.' [Thinks Richard, 'O, how I wish that I were Paul, carrying Virginia over the river!'] '"Do not be afraid," cried Paul to Virginia; "I feel very strong with you. If the inhabitant of the Black River had refused you the pardon of his slave, I would have fought with him."' ['And so would I,' thinks Richard, clenching his fists.] Night comes, and the lovers are almost despairing. Profound silence reigns in the awful solitudes. Will they escape? Can they escape? Paul climbs to the top of a tree, and cries, 'Come, come to the help of Virginia!' But only the echoes answer him, and the faint sound of 'Virginia, Virginia!' wanders through the forest. Despairing, they try to comfort each other, and seek for solace in prayer. Hark! they hear the barking of a dog. 'Surely,' says Virginia, 'it is Fidèle, our own dog. Yes, I know his voice. Are we, then, so near home? At the foot of our own mountain?' So they are rescued, and this night's reading ends happily. The delight of the children, the intense interest with which they hang upon every word, cannot be described. Their attention is so thoroughly engrossed, that the figures of the young lovers might be living and moving before them. When Mr. Silver shuts the book, a sigh comes from the youthful audience. A pause ensues, and then the children talk unreservedly about the story, and what the end will be--all but Ruth, who is too young yet to form opinions. It is of course this and of course that with them all, and not one of them guesses the truth, or has any idea of the tragic ending of the story.

'Charley,' says little Ruth, 'you are like Paul.'

They all clap their hands in acquiescence.

'But where's my Virginia?' asks Charley.

'I'll be Virginia,' cries Ruth somewhat precociously; 'and you can carry me about where you like.'

They all laugh at this, and Ruth is quite proud, believing that she has distinguished herself. It is strange to hear the blind girl say, 'I can see Paul with Virginia in his arms.' And no doubt she can, better than the others who are blessed with sight. The three grown-up persons listen and talk among themselves, and now and then join in the conversation. The clock strikes--nine. It is a cuckoo-clock, and the children listen to the measured 'Cuckoo! Cuck-oo!' until the soulless bird, having, with an egregious excess of vanity, asserted itself nine times as the great 'I am' of all the birds in town or country, retires into its nest, and sleeps for an hour. Then a chapter from the Bible and prayers, and in the prayers a few words to the memory of two--a brother and a sister--who have gone from among them. For last year they were seven; now they are five. Their faces grow sad as the memory of their dear brother and sister comes upon them in their prayers, and 'Poor Archie!' 'Poor Lizzie!' hang upon their lips. The night's pleasures and duties being ended, the three youngest children go to bed, the last kind nod and smile being given to Ruth, sister to poor Blade-o'-Grass, who lingers a moment behind the others, and with her arm round Rachel's neck, cries 'Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!' as her final good-night. But the proud bird in the clock takes no notice, and preserves a disdainful silence, although Ruth, as her custom is, waits a moment or two, and listens for the reply that does not come. Charley and Mary stop up an hour later than the others, reading; but before that hour expires, Mr. Merrywhistle bids his friends good-night, and retires.

[MR. MERRYWHISTLE MEETS THE QUEER LITTLE OLD MAN.]

But not to his bed. He was restless, and, the night being a fine one, he strolled out of Buttercup-square into the quiet streets. It was a favourite custom of his to walk along the streets of a night with no companions but his thoughts. Almost invariably he chose the quiet streets, for there are streets in London--north and south and east and west--which never sleep; streets which are healthy with traffic in the day, and diseased with traffic in the night.

Mr. Merrywhistle walked along and mused, in no unhappy frame of mind. A visit to the Silvers always soothed and comforted him; and on this occasion the sweet face of Mrs. Silver, and the happy faces and voices of the children, rested upon him like a peaceful cloud. So engrossed was he, that he did not heed the pattering of a small urchin at his side, and it was many moments before he awoke from his walking dream, and became conscious of the importunate intruder.

'If you please, sir!' said the small urchin, for the twentieth time, in a voice of weak pleading.

Mr. Merrywhistle looked down, and saw a face that he fancied he had seen before. But the memory of the happy group in Buttercup-square still lingered upon him. What he really saw as he looked down was a little boy without a cap, large-eyed, white-faced, and bare-footed. No other than Tom Beadle in fact, making hay, or trying to make it, not while the sun, but while the moon shone.

'If you please, sir!' repeated the boy, 'will you give me a copper to buy a bit o' bread?'

Then the dawn of faint suspicion loomed upon Mr. Merrywhistle. He placed his hand lightly upon Tom Beadle's shoulder, and said in a troubled voice, 'My boy, haven't I seen you before to-day?'

'No, sir,' boldly answered Tom Beadle, having no suspicion of the truth; for when the shilling was slipped into his hand, his eyes were towards the ground, and he did not see Mr. Merrywhistle's face.

'Were you not on the Royal Exchange with a little girl, and didn't I give you a--a shilling?'

For a moment Tom Beadle winced, and he had it in his mind to twist his shoulder from Mr. Merrywhistle's grasp and run away. For a moment only: natural cunning and his inclination kept him where he was. To tell the honest truth, a lie was a sweet morsel to Tom Beadle, and he absolutely gloried in 'taking people in.' So, on this occasion, he sent one sharp glance at Mr. Merrywhistle--which, rapid as it was, had all the effect of a sun-picture upon him--and whined piteously, 'Me 'ave a shillin' guv to me! Never 'ad sich a bit o' luck in all my born days. It was some other boy, sir, some cove who didn't want it. They allus gits the luck of it. And as for a little gal and the Royal Igschange, I wish I may die if I've been near the place for a week!'

'And you are hungry?' questioned Mr. Merrywhistle, fighting with his doubts.

''Aven't 'ad a ounce o' bread in my mouth this blessed day;' and two large tears gathered in Tom Beadle's eyes. He took care that Mr. Merrywhistle should see them.

Mr. Merrywhistle sighed, and with a feeling of positive pain gave twopence to Tom Beadle, who slipped his shoulder from Mr. Merrywhistle's hand with the facility of an eel, and scudded away in an exultant frame of mind.

Mr. Merrywhistle walked a few steps, hesitated, and then turned in the direction that Tom Beadle had taken.

'Now, I wonder,' he thought, 'whether the collector was right this morning, and whether I have been assisting in making criminals today.'

Truly this proved to be a night of coincidences to Mr. Merrywhistle; for he had not walked a mile before he came upon the queer little old man, whom he had met on the Royal Exchange. The old fellow was leaning against a lamp-post, smoking a pipe, and seemed to be as much at home in the wide street as he would have been in his own parlour. He looked surly and ill-grained, and his eyebrows were very precipitous. His mild eye was towards Mr. Merrywhistle, as that gentleman approached him, and when Mr. Merrywhistle slowly passed him, his fierce eye came in view and lighted upon the stroller. Before he had left the old man three yards behind him, Mr. Merrywhistle fancied he heard a chuckle. He would have dearly liked to turn back and accost the old man, but a feeling of awkwardness was upon him, and he could not muster sufficient courage. Chance, however, brought about an interview. Not far from him was a building that might have been a palace, it was so grand and light. It was a triumph of architecture, with its beautiful pillars, and its elaborate stonework. Great windows, higher than a man's height, gilt framed, and blazing with a light that threw everything around them in the shade, tempted the passer-by to stop and admire. There were three pictures in the windows, and these pictures were so cunningly surrounded by jets of light, that they could not fail to attract the eye. Awful satires were these pictures. Two of them represented the figure of a man under different aspects. On the left, this man was represented with a miserably-attenuated face, every line in which expressed woe and destitution; his clothes were so ragged that his flesh peeped through; his cheeks were thin, his lips were drawn in, his eyes were sunken; his lean hands seemed to tremble beneath a weight of misery: at the foot of this picture was an inscription, to the effect that it was the portrait of a man who did not drink So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout, both of which life's elixirs were to be obtained within. On the right, this same man was represented with full-fleshed face, with jovial eyes, with handsome mouth and teeth, with plump cheeks, with fat hands--his clothes and everything about him betokening worldly prosperity and happiness: at the foot of this picture was an inscription, to the effect that it was the portrait of the same man who (having, it is to be presumed, seen the error of his ways) did drink So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout. A glance inside this palace, crowded with Misery, would have been sufficient to show what a bitter satire these pictures were. But the centre picture, in addition to being a bitter satire, was awfully suggestive. It was this:

Whether to the artist or to the manufacturer was due the credit of ingeniously parading 'Old Tom' in a coffin, cannot (through the ignorance of the writer) here be recorded. But there it shone--an ominous advertisement. As Mr. Merrywhistle halted for a moment before these pictures, there issued from the Laboratory of Crime and Disease a man and a woman: he, blotched and bloated; she, worn-eyed and weary--both of them in rags. The woman, clinging to his arm, was begging him to come home--for his sake; for hers; for the children's; for God's! With his disengaged hand he struck at her, and she fell to the ground, bleeding. She rose, however, and wiped her face with her apron, and implored him again and again to come home--and again he struck at her: this time with cruel effect, for she lay in the dust, helpless for a while. A crowd gathered quickly, and a hubbub ensued. In the midst of the Babel of voices, Mr. Merrywhistle, looking down saw the strange old man standing by his side. The same surly, sneering expression was on the old man's countenance, and Mr. Merrywhistle felt half inclined to quarrel with him for it. But before he had time to speak, the old man took the pipe out of his mouth, and pointing the stem in the direction of the chief actors in the scene, said, 'I knew them two when they was youngsters.'

'Indeed,' replied Mr. Merrywhistle, interested immediately, and delighted at the opportunity of opening up the conversation.

'She was a han'some gal; you'd scarce believe it to look at her now. She 'ad eyes like sloes; though whether sloes is bird, beast, or fish, I couldn't tell ye, but I've heard the sayin' a 'undred times. Anyways, she 'ad bright black eyes, and was a good gal too; but she fell in love'--(in a tone of intense scorn)--with that feller, and married him, the fool!'

'What has brought them to this?'

'Gin!' said the old man, expelling the word as if it were a bullet, and bringing his fierce eye to bear with all its force upon Mr. Merrywhistle.

Short as was the time occupied by this dialogue, it was long enough to put an end to the scene before them. The woman was raised to her feet by other women, many of whom urged her to 'Give him in charge, the brute!' but she shook her head, and staggered away in pain. Very quickly after her disappearance the crowd dissolved, by far the greater part of it finding its way through the swing-doors of the gin-palace, to talk of the event over So-and-so's gin and So-and-so's stout. Not that there was anything new or novel in the occurrence. It was but a scene in a drama of real life that had been played many hundred times in that locality. Presently the street was quite clear, and Mr. Merrywhistle and the old man were standing side by side, alone. A handy lamp-post served as a resting-place for the old man, who continued to smoke his pipe, and to chuckle between whiles, as if he knew that Mr. Merrywhistle wanted to get up a conversation, and did not know how to commence. As he saw that the old man was determined not to assist him, and as every moment added to the awkwardness of the situation, Mr. Merrywhistle made a desperate plunge.

'When I was on the Royal Exchange to-day----' he commenced.

The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and expelled a cloud and a chuckle at the same moment.

'I thought you was a-comin' to that,' he said. 'You owe me a bob.'

'What for?'

'I made a bet with you--to myself--that the first thing you'd speak about was the Royal Exchange. I bet you a bob--to myself--and I won it.'

Without hesitation Mr. Merrywhistle took a shilling from his pocket, and offered it to the old man, who eyed it with his fierce eye for a moment, doubtingly and with curiosity, and then calmly took possession of it, and put it in his waistcoat-pocket.

'When you was, on the Royal Exchange to-day,' he said, repeating Mr. Merrywhistle's words, 'you sor a boy and a girl a-beggin'.'

'No,' exclaimed Mr. Merrywhistle warmly; 'they were not begging.'

'You may call it what you like,' said the old man; 'but I call it beggin'; and so would that identical boy, if I was to ask him. He wouldn't tell you so, though. The boy he looked as if he was goin' to die, and you give him a copper or a bit of silver; and you wasn't pleased because I laughed at you for it. Now, then, fire away.'

'Was that boy starving? Was he as ill as he looked? Was I----'

'Took in?' added the old man, as Mr. Merrywhistle hesitated to express the doubt 'Why? D'ye want your money back? Lord! he's a smart little chap, is Tom Beadle!'

'You know him, then?'

'Know him!' replied the old man, with a contemptuous snort; 'I'd like to be told who it is about 'ere I don't know. And I'd like to know who you are. I'm almost as fond of askin' questions as I am of answering 'em. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If you expect Jimmy Wirtue to answer your questions, you must make up your mind to answer his'n.'

'You're Mr. Virtue, then?'

'You're at it agin. No, I'm not Mr. Virtue' (he had to struggle with the 'V' before it would pass his lips), 'but Jimmy Wirtue--and that's not Jimmy Wice. What's your'n?'

'Merrywhistle,' replied that gentleman shortly.

Jimmy Virtue was pleased at the quick answer.

'Merrywhistle!' he exclaimed. 'That's a rum name--rummer than mine. What more would you like to know? What am I? I keep a leavin'-shop. Where do I live? In Stoney-alley. Now, what are you; and where do you live? Are you a Methody parson, or a penny-a-liner, or a detective, or a cove that goes about studyin' human nater, or a feelanthrofist. We've lots o' them knockin' about 'ere.'

Mr. Merrywhistle was constrained to reply, but found himself unexpectedly in a quandary.

'I'm a--a--O, I'm Nothing Particular,' blurting it out almost in desperation.

'You look like it,' chuckled Jimmy Virtue, so tickled by his smart retort as to be satisfied with Mr. Merrywhistle's vague definition of his calling. 'We've lots of your sort, too, knockin' about here--more than the feelanthrofists, I shouldn't wonder. But I don't think there's any 'arm in you. Jimmy Wirtue's not a bad judge of a face; and he can tell you every one of your organs. 'Ere's Benevolence--you've got that large; 'ere's Ideality--not much o' that; 'ere's Language--shut your eyes; 'ere's Causality--no, it ain't; you 'aven't got it. I can't see your back bumps, nor the bumps atop o' your 'ead; but I could ferret out every one of 'em, if I 'ad my fingers there.'

At this moment an individual approached them who would have attracted the attention of the most unobservant. Mr. Merrywhistle did not see his face; but the gait of the man was so singular, that his eyes wandered immediately in the direction of the man. At every three steps the singular figure paused, and puffed, as if he were a steam-engine, and was blowing off steam. One--two--three; puff. One--two--three; puff. One--two--three; puff.

'What on earth is the matter with the man?' exclaimed Mr. Merrywhistle to Jimmy Virtue.

'Nothing that I knows of,' replied Jimmy Virtue; 'he's been goin' on that way for the last twenty year. If you're lookin' out for characters, you'll get plenty of 'em 'ere. Perhaps you're a artist for one of the rubbishy picter-papers--one of the fellers who sees a murder done in a Whitechapel court one day, and takes a picter of it on the spot from nater; and who sees a shipwreck in the Atlantic the next day, and takes a picter of that on the spot from nater. That there man's worth his ten 'undred golden sovereigns a-year, if he's worth a penny; and he lives on tuppence a-day. The girls and boys about here calls him Three-Steps-and-a-Puff. If you was to go and offer him a ha'penny, he'd take it.'

By the time that Three-Steps-and-a-Puff was out of sight, the tobacco in Jimmy Virtue's pipe had turned to dust and smoke, and he prepared to depart also. But seeing that Mr. Merrywhistle was inclined for further conversation, he said:

'Perhaps you'd like to come down and see my place?'

Mr. Merrywhistle said that he would very much like to come down and see Jimmy Virtue's place.

'Come along, then,' said Jimmy Virtue, but paused, and said, 'Stop a bit; perhaps you wouldn't mind buyin' a penn'orth o' baked taters first.'

A baked-potato can, with a man attached to it, being near them, Mr. Merrywhistle invested a penny, thinking that Jimmy Virtue intended the potatoes for supper.

'Did you ever consider,' said the eccentric old man, as they turned down the narrowest of lanes, 'that a big city was like a theaytre?'

'No, it never struck me.'

'It is, though I there's stalls, and dress-circle, and pit, and gallery, in a big city like London. The west, that's the stalls and private boxes; the north, that's the dress-circle; the south, that's the pit; the east, that's the gallery. This is the penny-gallery of the theaytre; 'taint a nice place to lay in.'

He stopped before the forms of two children--a boy and a girl--who, huddled in each other's arms, were fast asleep in a gateway. He stirred them gently with his foot; and the boy started to his feet instantaneously, wide awake, and on the alert for his natural enemies, the police. Mr. Merrywhistle was standing in the abutment of the gateway, and the boy couldn't see his face; but the well-known form of Jimmy Virtue was instantly recognised; and as the boy sank to the ground, he muttered:

'What's the good of waking us up just as we was a-gettin' warm? You wouldn't like it yourself, Mr. Wirtue, you wouldn't.'

Then he crept closer to his companion, and said sleepily:

'Come along, Bladergrass; let's turn in agin.'

The girl, who had been regarding the two dark shadows with a half-frightened, half-imploring look, as if she dreaded that they were about to turn her out of her miserable shelter, nestled in the lad's arms, and the next minute they were asleep again. All blessings were not denied to them.