only one of the child's ordinary attacks, accelerated by excitement and fatigue. For a few days she was ill enough to keep Miss Elliott a close prisoner to her sick-room; for, with the obstinacy of a spoiled child, she would hardly permit her sister to come near her, and even her mother and Caroline were barely tolerated. Cousin Guy paid regular visits, and was always welcomed by a languid smile. When she was well enough, he would stop and play with her for an hour or two. He took very little notice of Edith's nurse beyond a cheerful word or two. Dym would sit apart sewing in the window, quite content to be a listener. She could not help a smile now and then at his droll sallies, but at other times she looked drooping, almost sad. The hour for her departure was drawing near, and she began to suspect that Mr. Chichester's promised mediation had failed.

Her suspicion was soon verified.

One afternoon, when Edith was well enough to be carried down to the drawing-room, Dym was standing listlessly by the school-room window, fondling Kiddle-a-wink, who often found his way up-stairs, when a sudden eager prick of the ears and a pleased bark made her turn round.

"Is there any admittance for Kiddle-a-wink's master?” "I don't know-I suppose so," stammered Dym, nervously. She was a little afraid of Mr. Chichester's quizzical eyes. "Edith is down-stairs in the drawing-room, sir."

"As I carried her there myself, I suppose I am aware of that fact. I also strongly suspect that my cousin Beatrix has just ridden from the door with Colonel Delaire, and that my aunt is asleep."

"Does Edith want me, Mr. Chichester?"

"On the contrary, I believe it is I who want you. I have come to tell you, Miss Elliott, that, as usual, I have been a most egregious blunderer,-that, in fact, I have failed in

toto.'

"So I supposed," was the almost inaudible answer.

"Verdict, Served me right.' I suppose I ought to have taken your advice, and not meddled in matters too high for me. I wonder how they would ever preserve the balance of power in a woman's parliament; there would be nothing but opposition benches,-no ayes, all noes. Where do you women manage to invest your vast stock of pride?"

"Miss Tressilian is very proud, Mr. Chichester."

"So is somebody else,-six of one and half a dozen of an other. I wash my hands of you both. Ulysses ploughing the sea-shore with his ill-matched team has an easy task compared to a man who has to reconcile two angry women."

"Edith represents the infant Telemachus, I suppose," returned Dym, trying to enter into his humor.

"Exactly so. Well, as I have got into hot water for your sake, I hope you will be grateful anyhow. I have got my congé from Lansdowne House."

"Do you mean you and Miss Tressilian have quarrelled? Oh, Mr. Chichester!"

"Don't alarm yourself; a difference of opinion is not uncommon between us. My cousin Beatrix is not a manageable woman. I am not fond of manageable women. When I am provoked to say anything specially bitter, I generally pack my bag."

"Indeed!" Dym could find no satisfactory answer to this strange confidence.

"I believe James is packing mine now. I am an erratic animal, Miss Elliott, a large edition of the Miss Mowcher type, here, there, and everywhere.' By the by, if I hear of anything to your advantage, shall I advertise?"

"I don't understand you," began Dym, in a puzzled tone. "I will explain myself, then. If I hear of a very young governess being wanted immediately, on fabulous terms, how am I-they-how is any one to communicate with you?"

"Oh, I see. You mean, I am to give you my address, or rather my brother's."

"Exactly so; brothers are very safe persons."

Dym did not quite know what to make of the mocking tones; older and wiser people were seldom quite sure when Guy Chichester was speaking in jest or earnest. She gravely waited while he produced his pocket-book, and obediently wrote down her address:

"THE REV. WILLIAM ELLIOTT,

3, Paradise Row (leading out of Malden Road), Kentish Town."

She half fancied that she saw a start of surprise as Mr. Chi

chester read her entry. He gave her a quick, searching look, and seemed about to speak, and then checked himself. When he next spoke he had resumed his ordinary manner.

"Where does your brother work?"

"At St. Luke's. Such an ugly old church, and such a poor parish. The vicar, Mr. Benedict, is away on sick leave. Will is sole curate in charge."

"Did he advertise in the Guardian for help long time ago?"

"Yes, when he felt himself breaking down; but no one would accept the miserable stipend he offered them, and so he has to go on alone. There has been a great deal of sickness about lately, and he has been miserably overworked, the nightschools come so heavily on him."

"I dare say. Thank you, Miss Elliott, for being so frank with me; I am really anxious to serve you if I can-if only," he hesitated, "for Edith's sake, and because of my cousin's injustice to you. You know I am Edith's guardian?"

"I did not know it, sir."

"Probably not. Well, I don't care to exert my authority unnecessarily. Perhaps, after all, though you can't help it, you are rather young. Come, Kiddle-a-wink, my fine fellow, we must be going. Adieu! au revoir, Miss Elliott."

"It is good-by altogether, sir; I am leaving the day after

to-morrow.'

"So much the better; delays are weak. Never mind; it is au revoir for all that.' And, with a kindly shake of the hand, Guy Chichester left the room.

The next day the Reverend William Elliott received the following curt missive:

"Tired of my West-end life already, and in a frightfully bad temper. Hard work the only cure. Shall take the nightschools to-morrow, and keep on for the next three weeks. Tell Bill Saunders to be careful, and have none of his nonsense for the future. Hope your cough is better.-Yours to command, "AN HONEST FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER

TO ST. LUKE'S."

D

CHAPTER IV.

NUMBER THREE PARADISE ROW.

I SUPPOSE most people have agreed that Camden Town is hardly to be considered as a fashionable locality. It is possible to find it on the map. But an inhabitant of Belgravia will hardly so compromise himself or herself as to be quite sure of its exact locality. Hampstead may be mentioned with a certain amount of caution, and there is something delightfully Bohemian in the thought of St. John's Wood. Artists and singers group themselves there in colonies, which trench somewhat fastidiously on the border-land which vaguely hints at Kilburn. Regent's Park has a strong flavor of gentility, which, much diluted, spreads itself out with some difficulty to the green confines of Primrose Hill; but Camden Town! breathe it not into ears polite!

It is out of the radius, unredeemable, a spot of earth aban doned to the spoiler; one of a triumvirate, for its twin sisters, Kentish and Somers Towns, must veil their heads under the same genteel obloquy. People who have heard of Whitechapel, of the Seven Dials, of Poplar, of the Isle of Dogs, from the "Records of the City Missionary," will somehow comprehend these places in the same dim category as regions where such people ought to work-as outskirts where the overflowing lava of population in the great city may spread itself out and cover the ground, drinking in fresh country air, and gaining glimpses of green fields and trees, till the endless rows of thinly-walled houses shut out the transient view; till the comfortless lodging-houses fill to suffocation; till the squalor of poverty and a nation's ever-increasing need devour everything like Pharaoh's hungry kine; till room and more room are fiercely demanded, and the crowds of children playing in the gutters seem, with their innocent, famine-worn faces, to protest unconsciously against their own existence. "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones—" What, these little ones! these hungry and ignorant blasphemers,

from whose words we recoil in horror, from whom we draw aside our very garments to defend them against their contaminating touch; these children who drink in vice with their mothers' milk; who know nothing but to starve and lie and curse; these little ones! "Whosoever shall offend one of these-"

These things are the hieroglyphics of life-the mystery which nineteenth-century philanthropists are striving to solve with compulsory education, with pitiable gifts of larger light, which shall only serve to show them the deeper darkness of their surroundings. True, the light advances. Many are the earnest workers, the earnest thinkers, who have set themselves but this one life-task-to fight till death against the serried ranks of evil; who will carry if it be but a flickering torch-light into these dark places of the earth, if haply they can rescue one soul, one starving diseased body, nay, even one of these little ones, who suffer the martyrdom of the Innocents a hundred times, whose dumb cries are unheard on earth, but which fill heaven.

These are the true heroes, the heroines, the faithful servants in the Parable, the workers in the vineyards. Still is the work never-ceasing, while the labourers are few.

Few people envied the Reverend William Elliott, the hardworking curate at St. Luke's. Some of the most earnestminded of his flock helped and encouraged him, it is true; but the rest those even of his poorer parishioners-pitied and somewhat looked down on him.

He was a poor man as they were, dwelling among them in a home scarcely better than theirs, a man, too, that could not bear his poverty with any special grace or dignity, such were his infirmities, but who lived out his blameless and suffering life with the cheerfulness and constancy of a martyr. Few more noble characters than William Elliott, few more sorely tried lives.

By birth a gentleman, and with a gentleman's refined mind and fastidious taste, with great powers of intellect, and of a naturally sociable temperament, Providence-or, as people somewhat irreverently term it, Fate-had removed him from the studious seclusion of college life, and the delights of curtivated and congenial fellowship, to a curate's hard-working life and bare pittance at St. Luke's, Kentish Town.