different answers reached him; his wife's came next day, his bishop's three days later.

Poor Anne was frantic, as well she might be. "Come to Hammersley for two months in the heat of the summer; bring little Dulcie; break up her home!-Never. Throw over Lady Kidderminster's Saturdays; admit a stranger to the vicarage!-Never! Was her husband out of his senses ?" She was deeply, deeply hurt. He must come back immediately, or more serious consequences than he imagined might ensue.

Trevithic's eyes filled up with tears as he crumpled the note up in his hand and flung it across the room. It was for this he had sacrificed the hope of his youth, of his life,-for this. It was too late now to regret, to think of what another fate might have been. Marriage had done him this cruel service-It had taught what happiness might be, what some love might be, but it had withheld the sweetness of the fruit of the tree of life, and only disclosed the knowledge of good and of evil to this unhappy Adam outside the gates of the garden.

Old Mr. Bellingham did not mend matters by writing a trembling and long-winded remonstrance. Lady Kidderminster, to whom Anne had complained, pronounced Trevithic mad; she had had some idea of the kind, she said, that day when he behaved in that extraordinary manner in the lane. "It's a benevolent mania," said Lord Axminster, her eldest son. Mrs. Myles shook her head, and began, "He is not mad, most noble lady. Mrs. Trevithic, who was present, flushed up with resentment at Mrs. Myles venturing to quote scripture in Jack's behalf. She did not look over-pleased when Mrs. Myles added that she should see Mr. Trevithic probably when she went to stay at Hammersley with her cousin, Mrs. Garnier, and would certainly go and see him at his work.

Jack, who was in a strange determined mood, meanwhile wrote back to his wife to say that he felt that it was all very hard upon her; that he asked it from her goodness to him and her wifely love; that he would make her very happy if she would only consent to come, and if not she must go to her father's for a few weeks until he had got this work done. "Indeed it is no sudden freak, dear," he wrote. "I had it in my mind before"-(John hesitated here for a minute and took his pen off the paper) -"that eventful day when I walked up to the rector, and saw you and learnt to know you." So he finished his sentence. But his heart sank as he posted the letter. Ah me! he had dreamed a different dream.

If his correspondence with his wife did not prosper as it should have done, poor Trevithic was greatly cheered by the bishop's letter, which not only gave consent to this present scheme, but offered him, if he wished for more active duty, the incumbency of St. Bigots in the North, which would shortly be vacant in Hammersley, and which, although less valuable than his present living as far as the income was concerned, was much more so as regards the souls to be saved, which were included in the bargain.

New brooms sweep clean, says the good old adage. After he took up his residence at St. Magdalene's, Jack's broomstick did not begin to sweep for seven whole days. He did not go back to Featherston; Anne had left for Sandsea; and Mr. Skipper was in possession of the rectory, and Trevithic was left in that of 500 paupers in various stages of misery and decrepitude, and of a two-headed creature called Bulcox, otherwise termed the master and the matron of the place. Jack waited; he felt that if he began too soon he might ruin everything, get into trouble, stir up the dust, which had been lying so thickly, and make matters worse than before; he waited, watched, looked about him, asked endless questions, to not one of which the poor folks dared give a truthful answer. "Nurse was werry kind, that she was, and most kinsiderate, up any time o' night and day," gasped poor wretches, whose last pinch of tea had just been violently appropriated by "nurse" with the fierce eyebrows sitting over the fire, and who would lie for hours in an agony of pain before they dared awaken her from her weary sleep. For nurse, whatever her hard rapacious heart might be, was only made of the same aching bones and feeble flesh as the rest of them. 66 Everybody was kind and good, and the mistress came round reg'lar and ast them what they wanted. The tea was not so nice perhaps as it might be, but they was not wishin' to complain." So they moaned on for the first three days. On the fourth one or two cleverer and more truthful than the rest began to whisper that "nurse" sometimes indulged in a drop too much; that she had been very unmanageable the night before, had boxed poor Tilly's ears-poor simpleton. They all loved Tilly, and didn't like to see her hurt. See, there was the bruise on her cheek, and Tilly, a woman of thirty, but a child in her ways, came shyly up in a pinafore, with a doll in one arm and a finger in her mouth. All the old hags sitting on their beds smiled at her as she went along. This poor witless Tilly was the pet of the ward, and they did not like to have her beaten. Trevithic was affected, he brought Tilly some sugar-plums in his pocket, and the old toothless crones brightened up and thanked him, nodding their white night-caps encouragingly from every bed. Meanwhile John sickened: the sights, the smells, the depression of spirits produced by this vast suffering mass of his unlucky brothers and sisters, was too much for him, and for a couple of days he took to his bed. The matron came to see him twice; she took an interest in this cheerful new element, sparkling still with full reflection of the world outside. She glanced admiringly at his neatly appointed dressing-table, the silver top to his shaving-gear, and the ivory brushes.

John was feverish and thirsty, and was draining a bottle of mirkylooking water when Mrs. Bulcox came into the room. "What is that you are drinking there, sir?" said she. "My goodness, it's the water from the tap,-we never touch it! I'll send you some of ours; the tapwater comes through the cesspool and is as nasty as nasty can be."

"Is it what they habitually drink here?" Trevithic asked, languidly. "They're used to it," said Mrs. Bulcox; "nothing hurts them."

Jack turned away with an impatient movement, and Mrs. Bulcox went off indignant at his want of courtesy. The fact was, that Jack already knew more of the Bulcox's doings than they had any conception of, poor wretches, as they lay snoring the comfortable sleep of callousness on their snug pillows. "I don't 'alf like that chap," Mr. Bulcox had remarked to his wife, and Mrs. Bulcox had heartily echoed the misgiving. "I go to see him when he is ill," said she, "and he cuts me off as sharp as anything. What business has he comin' prying and spying about the place?"

What indeed! The place oppressed poor Jack, tossing on his bed; it seemed to close in upon him, the atmosphere appeared to be full of horrible moans and suggestions. In his normal condition Jack would have gone to sleep like a top, done his best, troubled his head no more on the subject of troubles he could not relieve; but just now he was out of health, out of spirits-although his darling desire was his-and more susceptible to nervous influences and suggestions than he had ever been in his life before. This night especially he was haunted and overpowered by the closeness and stillness of his room. It looked out through bars into a narrow street, and a nervous feeling of imprisonment and helplessness came over him so strongly that, to shake it off, he jumped up at last and partly dressed himself, and began to pace up and down the room. The popular history of Jack the Giant-Killer gives a ghastly account of the abode of Blunderbore; it describes "an immense room where lay the limbs of the people lately seized and devoured," and Blunderbore "with a horrid grin" telling Jack "that men's hearts eaten with pepper and vinegar were his nicest food. The giant then locked Jack up," says the history, "and went to fetch a friend."

Poor Trevithic felt something in Jack's position when the gates were closed for the night, and he found himself shut in with his miserable companions. He could from his room hear the bolts and the bars and the grinding of the lock, and immediately a longing would seize him to get out.

To-night, after pacing up and down, he at last took up his hat and a light in his hand, and opened his door and walked downstairs to assure himself of his liberty and get rid of this oppressive feeling of confinement. He passed the master's door and heard his snores, and then he came to the lower door opening into the inner court. The keys wero in it-it was only locked on the inside. As Jack came out into the courtyard he gave a great breath of relief: the stars were shining thickly overhead, very still, very bright; the place seemed less God-forgotten than when he was up there in his bedroom: the fresh night-air blew in his face and extinguished his light. He did not care, he put it down in a corner by the door, and went on into the middle of the yard and looked all round about him. Here and there from some of the windows a faint light was burning and painting the bars in gigantic shadows upon the walls; and at the end of the court, from what seemed like a grating

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Trevithic was surprised to see a light in such a place and he walked up to see, and then he turned quickly away, and if like uncle Toby he swore a great oath at the horrible sight he saw, it was but an expression of honest pity and most Christian charity. The grating was a double grating and looked into two cellars which were used as casual wards when the regular ward was full. The sight Trevithic saw is not one that I can describe here. People have read of such things as they are and were only a little while ago when the Pall Mall Gazette first published that terrible account which set people talking and asking whether such things should be and could be still.

to a cellar, some dim rays were streaming upward.

Old Davy had told him a great many sad and horrible things, but they were not so sad or so horrible as the truth, as Jack now saw it. Truth, naked, alas! covered with dirt and vermin, shuddering with cold, moaning with disease, and heaped and tossed in miserable uneasy sleep at the bottom of her foul well. Every now and then a voice broke the darkness, or a cough or a moan reached him from the sleepers above. Jack did not improve his night's rest by his midnight wandering.

Trevithic got well, however, next day, dressed himself, and went down into the little office which had been assigned to him. His bedroom was over From his office the gateway of the workhouse and looked into the street.

he had only a sight of the men's court, the wooden bench, the stone steps, the grating. Inside was a stove and green drugget, a little library of books covered with greasy brown paper for the use of those who could read. There was not much to comfort or cheer him, and as he sat there he began

think a little disconsolately of his pleasant home, with its clean com1ortable appointments, the flowers round the window, the fresh chintzes, and, above all, the dear little round face upturned to meet him at every coming home.

It would not do to think of such things, and Jack put them away, but he wished that Anne had consented to come to him. It seemed hard to be there alone-him a father and a husband with belongings of his own. Trevithic, who was still weak and out of sorts, found himself making a little languid castle in the air, of crooked places made straight, of whited sepulchres made clean, of Dulcie, grown tall and sensible, coming tapping at his door to cheer him when he was sad, and encourage him when he was weary.

Had the fever come back, and could it be that he was wandering? It seemed to him that all the heads of the old men he could see through the grating were turning, and that an apparition was passing by-an apparition, gracious, smiling, looking in through the bars of his window, and coming gently knocking at his door; and then it opened, and a low voice said," It's me, Mr. Trevithic-Mrs. Myles; may I come in?" and a “How ill you are cool, grey phantom stepped into the dark little room. looking," Mrs. Myles said, compassionately. "I came to ask you to come back and dine with us; I am only here for a day or two with my cousin

Fanny Garnier. She visits this place and brought me, and I thought of asking for you; and do come, Mr. Trevithic. These--these persons showed me the way to your study." And she looked back at the grinning old heads that were peeping in at the door. Mary Myles looked like the lady in Comus-so sweet, and pure, and fair, with the grotesque faces, peering and whispering all about her. They vanished when Trevithic turned, and stood behind the door watching and chattering like apes, for the pretty lady to come out again. "I cannot tell you how glad we are that you have come here, Mr. Trevithic," said Mrs. Myles. "Poor Fanny has half broken her heart over the place, and Mr. Skipper was so hopeless that it was no use urging him to appeal. You will do more good in a week than he has done in a year. I must not wait now," Mrs. Myles added. "You will come, won't you ?—at seven; we have so much to say to is the address."

you. Here As soon as Jack had promised to come, she left him, disappearing with her strange little court hobbling after her to the very gate of the dreary place. Jack was destined to have more than one visitor that afternoon. As he still sat writing busily at his desk in the little office, a tap came at the door. It was a different apparition this time, for an old woman's head peeped in, and an old nutcracker-looking body, in her charity-girl's livery, staggered feebly into his office and stood grinning slyly at him. "She came to borrow a book," she said. "She couldn't read, not she, but, law bless him, that was no matter." Then she hesitated. "He had been speaking to Mike Rogers that morning. You wouldn't go and get us into trouble," said the old crone, with a wistful, doubtful scanning interrogation of the eyes: "but I am his good lady, and 'ave been these thirty years, and it do seem hard upon the gals, and if you could speak the word, sir, and get them out. . . .

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"Out?" said Jack.

"From the black kitchen-so they name it," said the old crone, mysteriously: "the cellar under the master's stairs. Kate Hill has been in and out a week come yesterday. I knowed her grandmother, poor soul. She shouldn't have spoke tighty to the missis; but she is young and don't know no better, and my good man and me was thinking if maybe you could say a word, sir—as if from yourself. Maybe you heard her as you went upstairs, sir; for we know our cries is 'eard."

So this was it. The moans in the air were not fancy, the complainings had been the real complaints of some one in suffering and pain.

"Here is the book," said Jack, suddenly; "and I'm afraid you can have no more snuff, ma'am." And with a start poor old Betty Rogers ucarly stumbled over the matron, who was standing at his door.

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Well, what is it you're wanting now?" said Mrs. Bulcox. mustn't allow them to come troubling you, Mr. Trevithic.'

"You

"I am not here for long, Mrs. Bulcox," said Jack, shrugging his shoulders. "While I stay I may as well do all I can for these poor creatures."