way, announcing that a grand temperance demonstration was shortly to be made by the juvenile teetotalers connected with the Band of Hope; and above was depicted (probably as a further temptation to induce youthful converts) a van-load of rejoicing proselytes, proceeding, by means of four speeding horses, to that suburban paradise known as the Rye House.

Behind the counter, and serving a small child, whose dirty straw bonnet hung like a hood upon her back, was a fat, greasylooking gentleman, in an apron that had once been white, and with a pair of well-oiled curls plastered upon his temples.

"A penn'orth of treacle; and, please, mother says you're to give good weight," said the child, in a shrill key.

"And mother says, please, you're to give good weight," she repeated, in the same tone, as the greasy gentleman, not deigning to reply, proceeded to weigh the sticky compound, which he poured out of a green can.

Whether the greasy proprietor of "The Little T Chest" would still have treated his customer with contemptuous silence under this second indignity cast upon his virtue, it is impossible to say; but at this instant happening to lift his fishy eyes, and beholding Mr. Evelyn, he, no doubt, felt his character was at stake.

"Good weight, my dear!" said he, with an angelic smile, and yet with an aspect of stern reproof; "tell your mother we always give good weight here."

Nevertheless, as he spoke, he contrived, with his little finger, to give the scale a gentle touch, which sent the treacle down immediately.

"There," said he, sweetly, taking the cup from the scale before it had time to regain its just equilibrium—“ There, my dear, tell your mother there's good weight there."

The child doubtingly departed, loitering on the step, however, first to insert her finger in the cup, and afterwards into her mouth. "Oh! the depravity—the depravity of human nature!" ejaculated the grocer, turning up one eye to the ceiling, and the other towards our clerical friend; "and that child only took the pledge last week, and became a Tinglebottomian New Light."

"A what?" demanded Mr. Evelyn, in some surprise.
"A Tinglebottomian New Light, sir."

"Indeed!" replied the Rector, rubbing his chin. "Pray what may that be?"

With something akin to stern contempt at the Rector's ignorance, the sleek-faced grocer proceeded to explain that the Tinglebottomian New Light was a religious sect or congregation, holding opinions essentially different from, and essentially more in conformity with truth and pure religion, than all other sects and congregations

into which the Church of Christendom was divided; and, further. more, that it was so-named from its eloquent and godly expounder, the Reverend Zachariah Tinglebottom, who was also the speaker's spiritual pastor and intimate friend.

Mr. Evelyn had never before heard of this new Dissenting schism; and, being a staunch upholder of his cloth, the information gave him no satisfaction. Drawing himself somewhat stiffly up, he expressed his wish to speak to Mr. Obadiah Jones.

The fat grocer, hereupon regarding the speaker with his fishy eyes wonderingly and hesitatingly, and wiping his pudgy hands upon his apron, at length leant forward upon the counter, and insinuatingly replied

"My name, sir, is Obadiah Jones. What can I do for you, if you please?"

"Then you are the writer, I presume, of this?" said the Rector, producing the curious epistle he had received.

Obadiah's eyes grew more staring and expressionless than ever, and he wiped his hands again before venturing to touch the delicate document. When he perceived what it was, his manner became doubly deferential.

"Are you the Reverend Andrew Heavelyn, sir?" he demanded, with extreme respect.

"I am," the Rector returned, quietly. "And, in regard to the contents of this letter, you may believe, my friend, how anxious I am to see my poor, unhappy child. is she? How is she? Lead me to her, I entreat you, delay."

Where without

The grocer drew himself up to his full height-that is to say, he became nearly round, his breadth and altitude being pretty equal-and, puffing his cheek, he spoke in a hollow and ominous whisper

"She-she is gone."

"Gone!" ejaculated the anxious father, starting back.

"The lamb is gathered to the fold-she is dead," was the reply, delivered in the same wheezy and solemn whisper.

The poor Rector stood silent and still for a few moments, and his lips quivered. Then he said, in a low volce, "God's will be done!"

"Her last moments, sir, you will rejoice to know, were com forted by the presence of our pastor, of whom I was speaking, and by Mrs. Jones; and-and though she was, as Mrs. Jones, my wife, says, a little dark, we may, at least, hope, sir, that her benighted spirit is in Je-rusalem."

Whether it was a kindly spirit of hospitality, or whether Mr. Jones thought he could talk more at ease, and make himself appear

in a more advantageous light, with a view to receiving his reward from the Rector's generosity and gratitude; or whether, having the latter object in his view, he conceived the desirability of receiving his wife's all-powerful support-who shall say? However this may have been, he invited his guest to walk into the little parlour behind the counter, which was approached through a glass-door, with a yellow gauze blind. Here a rather sour-looking lady of fifty, thin and gawky in aspect, and rigidly upright in carriage, was sitting, and perusing a small tract, which the Rector afterwards found out was entitled, "The Final Extinguisher to Anti-Ticklebottomianism." She arose on the entrance of the gentleman, and let fall a curtsey of the primmest kind. The stout Obadiah, who seemed to stand in great awe of this lady, introduced the Rector to her in due form, and her to him, as "Mrs. Jones, sir-my wife," whereupon the lady, in a rather sepulchral tone, pointing to a chair, invited her guest to take a seat.

"Ah, sir, my husband has told you all," said Mrs. Jones, in a mournful but rather shrill key. "It is a sad and yet a blessed thing to die when we are young; we leave a wicked, sinful world. -Obadiah, there is some one in the shop."

The sorrowing father gave little heed to all her platitudes; he asked her presently when it was the poor girl died?

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Mrs. Jones replied with great volubility that the poor young lady departed on the previous evening, just after Mr. Jones had written the letter to him; that it was a pleasure to see her die, and so forth; that the pastor took a great interest in her, and tried to convert her to a Tinglebottomian New Light, and almost succeeded, she thought, if not quite; and that though she was dark" upon some points, it was very gratifying to know they were not "essentials," and so on at considerable length. Mr. Jones having by this time returned from serving, and, possibly, cheating his customer, and having seated himself before a lookingglass, so that he could occasionally caress and re-arrange the curling locks upon his temples, Mr. Evelyn, by dint of many questions, elicited the following facts, or rather, statements, which, being garnished and highly coloured by Mr. and Mrs. Jones with flattering encomiums upon their own charity and Christian love, purported to be such.

It appeared that about six months previously, on one cold and snowy night, about December, Mr. Jones thought, or November, as Mrs. Jones as stedfastly believed-the former citing as a proof that he went that night to the "Watch," which, as everybody knows, comes only on the final evening of the year; but Mrs Jones, maintaining her point, proof or not, it mattered nought to her; but certainly on one cold and wintry night, about six months

before, a young woman, who seemed in great distress of mind, though not in poverty, came into the shop and took the furnished room, which then they had to let.

At which point of the narrative Mrs. Jones broke off to give her listener some theological and ethical observations upon the letting of apartments in general.

"Exactly so, ma'am," the Rector interrupted hastily, and striving in vain to subdue the impatience which vanquished him. "But pray go on, ma'am. And so the poor young woman, who, I presume, was my unhappy daughter, entered the shop and took the furnished room. What next occurred?"

Being thus recalled to the progress of her tale, Mrs. Jones went on to say that this young woman, who was, indeed, a mere girl, and who, she at once perceived by her manners, was a lady, had taken the "apartment" then and there. Upon requesting a reference, "which you know, sir," said Mrs. Jones, " as it were a furnished apartment, were necessary, independent of her religious views," the young lady had burst into a torrent of tears, stating that she had no friends in London to whom she could refer; but, inasmuch as she volunteered to pay a month's rent in advance, Mrs. Jones waived her scruples in regard to the doubtfulness of her new lodger's religious views, thinking, and very truly, that so long as a person had money to meet the ordinary requirements of moral obligations on the head of rent, and as long as one's own self was a respectable Tinglebottomian New Light, and an offshoot of the Band of Hope, one had no call to stand in one's own light. In short, this young person, who stated her name was Smith, but who was extremely taciturn about her affairs, though, as Mrs. Jones assured her auditor -and with perfect truth-she had endeavoured by every means, direct and indirect, to ferret out the secrets of her life, the young lady stated that she had seen better times, and added, with a sigh, "better than she ever deserved to see again."

Mrs. Jones was fully persuaded that this mysterious young person had at first paid her rent, and supported herself, by the proceeds of the sale of her trinkets and jewellery, of which the deponent declared, from her own knowledge, the young lady possessed a considerable amount. She had, however, soon after she had taken up her residence with them, come downstairs one morning, and had, with some hesitation, inquired of the speaker as to the possi bility of her obtaining any needlework, and had alluded to the notice, then also in the window, which intimated that shirt hands were required. The result of which was, that Mrs. Jones procured for the young lady-" as, indeed, sir, she would have done anything in the world for the poor dear"-a supply of the said shirts from a certain "friend and widow lady, sir, which took in slop-work from a

city-house," to whom the said notice pertained. Farther, that by means of these shirts, the young girl had been able to earn, "one week with another, as much as two-and-six; which, sir, is little enough, as goodness knows, but which were better than none at all, and certainly helped to pay the rent."

The landlady went on further to say, that "Miss Smith, that is Miss Hevlyn, sir," was always very gentle and kind, though very silent about her own "affairs, which were certainly her business, sir, and not mine;" and that during the last illness of a certain Mrs. Sparks" the wife, sir, of a person as lodges upstairs "—which had occurred a month or two before, through poverty and lingering disease, the girl had waited like a sister upon her, tending the dying creature night and day, and seeming never to weary. And, furthermore-here Mrs. Jones spoke with some asperity-this Mrs. Sparks seemed to have learned more from the girl of her own life than anybody; and that Mr. Sparks, a drunkard though he were, held her in the greatest reverence.

"My poor girl-my unhappy, my erring child!" the Rector cried. "But could you never learn anything of-of the life she had been leading before she came to you?"

Mrs. Jones shook her head impressively. That she had ot appeared to distress her more than anything. Mr. Evelyn arose from his seat, and said something in a low tone; then Mrs. Jones rose also, and led the way, he following, from the room. With tears-with tears that blinded-the broken-hearted father went up those dark and creaking stairs; and in that little room, alone with none but death and God-beside that lowly, humble bed-he knelt. Reader, over that solemn scene were it not well to draw a veil ?

When Mr. Evelyn came down it was evening. He looked at his watch, and it was nearly nine o'clock. The last train left for Waverney at nine; he would not, therefore, be able to reach the station in time. He would, consequently, have to remain in town that night. He scarcely minded this, since he hardly felt the courage to break the sad news to those who waited in anxious expectation. While he was thus thinking, the bill in the window, "Lodgings for a single man," flashed across his mind. In short, it was quickly arranged he should pass the night in Paradise-row. To live one night in the miserable house where his child had died, the Rector felt a sort of penance; besides, there, in the solitude of the night, he could commune with her in spirit.