to them I dessay Mrs. Breeze will hear what she's got to say; and so I leaves you. Good morning, miss."

Clytie had slipped half-a-crown from her purse, but she felt that it would be an insult to offer it to the policeman; and he went his way, having faithfully performed one of those multifarious duties of the streets which make the London police of greater social and general value than we are willing to admit when we come down upon them for some failure in thief-catching.

"Well, miss," said the little park-keeper, "my missis lives in St. Mark's Crescent. Go straight on, past Primrose 'Ill, turn to the left, and ask any person for St. Mark's Crescent, and you can't mistake it-No. 43, with a bill in the window, and two flower-pots by the door. If you explains what you want, and can satisfy Mrs. Breeze --why, there aint a kinder soul going, though I says it. And with four children, and me only getting a guinea a week, why, the rooms is of importance, or I'd never have took such an expensive house; but there, it's done, and it cost us all the money me and my old gal 'ad saved, though she weren't an old gal then, as you can imagine."

"I go straight along the road?" said Clytie, anxious to move. "Yes," said Mr. Breeze, touching his hat again, and pointing out the way with his stick; "straight as you can go, No. 43, St. Mark's Crescent. You can't miss it. Turn to the left, ask any one, and say as Mr. Robinson, the policeman, recommended you; that's the best way, and it will be all right. I dessay you'll tell Mrs. Breeze who your friends are, and all that, and I'm sure she'll make you comfortable. Straight as you can go, past the 'Ill, turn to the left, then inquire. Good morning, miss."

He touched his hat once more, and then, having dismissed the lady, he turned savagely round upon the gnats and switched them into half a dozen gyrating clouds; but they soon joined their hosts together again, and with a notable exercise of that instinct which many people deny to man they sailed higher in the air, out of the park-keeper's reach, and oscillated steadily up and down in the sunshine, undisturbed except by an occasional martin or swallow which had business with them.

Worlds within worlds! What a strangely marvellous creation is this around us! May not the gnats and the swallows be taken as typical of the London streets? The instinct which carried the living cloud beyond the line of the attacking switch is not strong enough to protect it from the swallow. While we sometimes take infinite pains to elude small annoyances, we offer no defence-we have none to offer against the great calamities of life.

CHAPTER XIV.

GOOD SAMARITAN S.

JOHNNY BREEZE had been so full of wonder all day that the children in the park feared he was ill. He forgot to switch the air and pretend to run after them with savage demonstrations. The P. K. was thinking about his wife's new lodger, thinking of her pretty innocent face, wondering if Mrs. Breeze would make her one of the family, or what she would do. Women have often notions about pretty young girls that differ with masculine opinions. Johnny hoped she would take to this stranger, and he hoped the result would be satisfactory. He had a daughter of his own growing up, and this excited his special interest in young people of every class, apart from the professional feeling which his calling as a P. K. gave him.

It was therefore a gratifying circumstance to Johnny when he reached home that the wife of his bosom was just sitting down to tea with the young lady and the eldest Miss Breeze and Master Harry, who were all eyes and ears.

"I said you'd be here punctual, Johnny, as you always are, thank goodness," said Mrs. Breeze, giving the P. K. a conjugal smack on the cheek. "The tea is just ready. Now, Henry, take your arms off the table; and Lotty, I'm surprised you cannot keep your fingers. out of the sugar-and in presence of a lady too."

"Don't mind me,” said Clytie, with a smile.

Number 43, St. Mark's Crescent, had seen Clytie's first smile since she left Dunelm.

"But we do mind you, my dear young lady, we do mind you. Don't we, Johnny ?" said Mrs. Breeze, cutting bread and butter with all her might.

"Certainly, my dear," said the P. K., hanging up his hat. "You found the way, miss; I suppose Primrose 'Ill guided you. It's a good landmark. I've bin a thinking of you all day, and a wondering if you'd be here."

"Oh, thank you," said Clytie, more pleased than she could express at finding herself an object of interest and sympathy with these honest people.

"We had such a talk," said Mrs. Breeze, pouring out the tea, and frowning Master Harry's elbows off the table; "such a talk; and if we can afford it, we are going to have a piano, and Miss-but she will not tell me her name at present-will teach Lotty to play."

Miss Lotty blushed at the picture of herself sitting at the piano, and the P. K., passing the bread and butter and watercresses to

Clytie, looked proudly upon the company and said: “Ah, that will be fine."

Mrs. Breeze was a rosy, comfortable looking woman, with a round face and bright dark eyes; a sort of representative type of the lower middle class of Englishwoman; the kind of woman who is sure to wear a large shawl out of doors, and a little one pinned round her neck at home; a brown haired, healthy-looking woman, ready to do anything to keep a home together: to scrub, and wash, and cook, and let lodgings, and have a smiling face for her husband at night. Of course she was taller, and bigger, and stronger than her husband. She was the daughter of a Surrey dairyman, and he was the servant of a gentleman, through whose interest he had obtained the appointment of a keeper of Regent's Park. A guinea a week was not much, as Mrs. Breeze said, but it was a certainty, and clothes to the good made it worth a few shillings more, and it would be very hard if she could not make it up to a reasonable sum out of her lodgings; for three hundred and fifty pounds spent on furniture, and paying fifty-five pounds a year rent, must somehow be made to bring in a fair percentage, not to mention having milk free and a few useful presents now and then from the Surrey dairy.

"Miss Mary-that is all we are going to call her at present," went on Mrs. Breeze, chattering over the tea and smiling pleasantly on Clytie all the time-"she has been telling me all her history, and there, I'm sure—well, if it does not beat a book I never read one; and I never knew my heart warm to any one, rich or poor, old or young, as was not good and true; and I'm sure if she were my own-well, I could not feel more interest in her."

"Ah, you always was a kind-hearted soul, as your father used allers to say when I was coming down after you to the Dairy, 'Maggie'll never turn no milk sour;' and true it was.”

"I don't know for that," said Mrs. Breeze. "I have my bit of temper, like other people, and if I'd only the power to make it felt, wouldn't I clean out some o' them gilded dens of infamy as deceives people and looks honest when it is the ashes on the lips in that St. John's Wood. But Queen Victoria don't take the interest she used to in having respectable women about, and no wonder she's grieved as she is for Prince Albert. Well, he was handsome, that's true; but I'm wandering from what I was saying. Where was I, Johnny?" "Down at the Dairy, Maggie," said the P. K. promptly.

"No, you were there," said Mrs. Breeze.

"Yes, father said as you didn't turn the milk sour. Ah, ah, ah!" burst in Master Harry, who had been devouring the conversation and bread and butter with an intense relish.

"Hold your tongue, sir," said Mrs. Breeze promptly.

Master Harry looked at Clytie to signify that he complied with his mother's request in deference to his mother's visitor; otherwise, he would have contested the point.

At this moment there was a heavy tread on the stairs, which acted like a charm upon the family.

"That's Mr. Stevens, the first floor; I must go and see about his meat-tea; you will excuse me, won't you?" said Mrs. Breeze, bustling to the door; "and you children-Harry, you may go out and play, and Lotty, go and see if your sister is at her aunt's.”

This command broke up the party, the P. K. saying he would just like to cross the 'Ill, and see Mr. Robinson, and tell him as the young lady had found lodgings, just out of politeness to him, you know, as he was a very experienced officer, expecting to be inspector soon, don't you see-and all that.

So Clytie was left alone, and without hesitating for a moment about how she should occupy herself, she tucked up her sleeves and washed up the tea things, and then going down into the kitchen she washed her dimpled hands and arms, and came upstairs to find Mrs. Breeze in ecstacies of delight at Clytie's condescension and usefulness.

"And now if I promise you, on my honour, to keep your secret, if I give you my word, as solemn as my oath, you will tell me who your friends are and what you mean to do; because without prying into other people's affairs, I think I ought to know, for my own satisfaction, you see, and I'm sure you may trust me not to mention what you wishes kept back, even to Johnny. Of course I don't hold with a young lady running away from home; Lotty, for instance, why it would break my heart; but circumstances alter cases, and as you had only a grandfather, you say, and he was going to let the neighbours scorn and point at you, and all for nothing, I dare say I should have done the same."

"Mrs. Breeze, I will trust you," said Clytie, laying her head on the good woman's shoulder, for the P. K.'s wife had put her arm round the girl's waist. "If you are not good and true, I am sure I never saw any one whom I could trust; and you have been so kind to me--more than kind. I am sure you are the answer to my prayer that God would take care of me to-day, and find me a new home."

"Heaven bless the child," said Mrs. Breeze, stroking Clytie's silky

hair.

"In addition to all I have told you, my story is finished when I say that my grandfather is Mr. Luke Waller, organist of St. Bride's,

Dunelm, and that my mother died soon after I was born; that my father was a nobleman who married my mother, and ran away and left her at Boulogne; she was a famous actress under the name of Miss Olivia Pitt. But all this is to be a secret at present, my dear Mrs. Breeze; it has done me good to tell you," said Clytie, and the tears came into her eyes.

"Yes, yes, my dear child; but there is no need to cry; don't be afraid."

"I am only crying because I am glad, because you press me to your heart, because I have been oh! so miserable and wretched, and I have never known a mother, and it is so nice to be with you. I shut my eyes and try to think I am somebody's child who loves

me."

"My poor dear," said Mrs. Breeze, with her apron to her eyes, my poor dear, you have been forlorn indeed. I will be a mother to you, God willing, and who knows but He may have guided your footsteps here? for, after all, poor folk have the most feeling hearts— they knows what it is to suffer; there, there, cheer up, we must make the best of things; but you have not told me what you think of doing."

"Perhaps you will not agree with me if I do tell you," said Clytie; "I think I had better not tell you."

"Tell me everything, dear, now you've begun, just as we must tell all to a doctor or a lawyer, as Johnny says."

"Then, my dear Mrs. Breeze, I mean to go upon the stage,” said Clytie, looking up almost appealingly into Mrs. Breeze's face, and waiting anxiously for her reply.

Mrs. Breeze did not speak.

"To be an actress," said Clytie, still keeping her eyes fixed upon

the face of the P. K.'s wife.

"You've made up your mind?" said Mrs. Breeze, inquiringly. "Yes. I was afraid you would be against it," said Clytie.

"Well, I don't know, my child. I suppose it runs in the blood. Your mother was an actress. My grandfather was a soldier, and although the liking for that kind of life skipped my father, just as the gout, they say, skips a generation, my brothers to a man, and I've three of them—at least had, for one fell in the Crimea-all three went into the army; there is no accounting for these things, but I only hope as Harry may not be similarly taken. An actress-well, I don't see why an actress should not be a good woman, though the temptations are very great, and the wretches as waits about and stares at 'em from them private boxes; well, I often says to Johnny, when we goes sometimes to the play, they ought to be kicked out, but