I can't tell you (continued Mary) how happy we were in those merry days. We somehow were so free; free to wander by the rippling Mere; free to stroll through that mighty forest which at some distance half encircled our little village. In the nutting season, we would take my young brother George, and spend the long day in the hedgy lanes, or carry him into the meadows, and fancifully dress him up in flowers. We were welcome guests at any hour, in the house of every neighbour. We were very happy, because we were so respected and so free.

One summer evening, in the very kernel of our pleasant life, my father had been summoned to attend a poor patient, whose dwelling was at a long distance, and the road to which crossed the branch railway, which had only been finished that year. It was not till my dear father was absolutely across the rails, that he discovered an approaching train. His horse, scared and bewildered by the noise, would neither be urged forward nor tempted backward. In one instant, the awful engine was upon them, and in the next my father was in eternity. I pass over the details of our consequent distress. Just before or just after the funeral, I forget which, a gentleman called upon us and presented us with a hundred pounds on the part of the railway company, and promised that my brother George should be taken into their employ, first as a clerk, and eventually in a situation of greater responsibility. Several of the neighbours told us we might have obtained better terms; but others reminded us that no legal claim could be made. Our greatest trouble was, that the sudden nature of her husband's loss, partially deprived my poor mother of her faculties. She has been since then, as you see her now.

Soon afterwards, our George was appointed to a clerkship of eighty pounds a year in the London office. We couldn't bear the idea of separation; so, amidst the loudly expressed regrets and sympathies of the whole village, we sold off the principal portion of our furniture in Whimple, deposited the proceeds with Mr. Berger, an old and dear friend, and came away with my brother to London.

Having no connections in the metropolis, we lodged at an inn for some time, till we at last decided on renting a small house at Dalston. Time mercifully reconciled us to our double calamity; George soon found acquaintances among the young men of his office; and, if we were not entirely happy, at least we taught ourselves to be content.

When no great trouble occurs to disturb the tranquillity of our existence, trifling things assume an exaggerated importance. On one occasion, George told us he was invited out to a dinner party at the house of young Mr. Elphick, the nephew of one of the directors of the company. I had looked out his clothes, I remember, which, though somewhat worn, I contrived to make respectable, when an entire new suit was left for my brother at our house. Now, you will be scarcely surprised at the amount of anxiety this caused us, when you remember how ill, out of our little income, we could spare the

cost. But when he came home, and looked so pleased in his new attire, we couldn't find it in our

hearts to reproach him. He seemed, nevertheless, to understand our feeling; for, as he was going out, he suddenly turned round, and giving me a hearty kiss, said, "Never mind, Polly, they're paid for." Now, this little mystery gave us considerable uneasiness for some time.

The following quarter, George had his salary in creased; and, to celebrate the occasion, we resolved to give vent to our feelings in a party. Though we knew it was very wrong—that we couldn't afford it -that it would pinch us for the succeeding three months-yet we were all very pleased at the idea of entertaining the few friends we had acquired. We were of a cheerful, social disposition; my father had then been dead nearly two years, and it was the first time we had had a chance of real comfortable enjoyment. So we busied ourselves in the prepar ations; in which Alfred Wright, a particular friend of our George's, rendered wonderful help. He was a most obliging young man. He it was who cut the paper flowers, which were then quite uncommon; it was his fervent eloquence which induced his mother to lend us her old piano, and it was his skill which carved the oranges in the most curious and tasteful manner. He came early in the afternoon of our festivity, decanted the wine-four bottlesmade some bishop and negus, and distributed the fruits and the biscuits to such advantage on the dessert plates, that we seemed overburdened with plenty, when indeed we had barely enough. But, sir, we did enjoy that party, and the evening was full of cheerful entertainment.

Just as we were about to break up, a cab stopped, and a knock came to our door. Ellen answered it, and a strange gentleman inquired for George. Thinking him a friend, whom, unknown to us, my brother had invited, Ellen requested him to walk up-stairs. He declined. Fancying it rather strange, Ellen called me, when the stranger asked if I was the sister. I told him "yes." He said he particularly wished to see my brother alone. I sent for George. "You must come with me," said the man. Bewildered at what was passing, I helplessly inquired what was the matter. stranger told me that my brother George was arrested for forgery.

The

Alfred came down, heard it all, and with wonderful self-possession got rid of our guests, who went home happy and laughing, ignorant that their host, lately so merry, was a trembling prisoner in a felon's gaol.

We said nothing to my mother that night, and the next moment bitterly regretted her ignorance; each of us was anxious to depute to the other the terrible task of making her limited faculties under stand the true nature of our sad position. How it was at last broken to her I don't know. She perceived that Ellen had been fretting, so I took ar opportunity to slide out and leave them alone; but what my sister said, or how my mother bore it, I never cared to inquire. We were just then, too, in a strait for money. That which we had realized by the sale of our goods at Whimple was, as I said before, in the hands of an old friend, who had called on us only the day before, on his way to the conti nent, whence he would not return for six weeks.

Thus, we could not draw upon him till the expiration of that period. We had not only expended what money we had, in anticipation of George's salary, which was not then quite due, but were even a trifle in debt besides. The moment our misfortune became known-and ill news travels fast, you know, sir-our creditors demanded their money. We were too proud to let them go away unsatisfied; so, after requesting them to call in the evening, Ellen, at dusk, raised some money on the silver cream jug and spoons which my mother bought when she was married; and as that was not quite enough, she took the little mug which was given to George when he was christened, and with the proceeds of the whole, we discharged every claim and had something over besides.

The excitement and bustle was so great that, until that partial lull, I had had no time to review our position, or even to inquire into the particular crime with which our George was charged. I went to the head of my brother's office, who, in a somewhat stern manner, which gradually softened into extreme kindness, related the offences. I didn't quite understand it: it was a false signature to some transfer of stock, I believe, which, as the papers had passed through my brother's hands, it was alleged he had supplied. I don't remember very clearly: there was a mass of words-much sympathy-and I came away.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but I was not clear and certain in my own mind whether the unhappy boy was guilty or not: one might suppose, loving him, watching him with such close affection for so many years, (for I am old enough, sir, to have nursed him in his cradle,) that not one thought of his could have enlarged into an action, but that I could have surely witnessed its gradual growth. Some how or other, this was not so.

What better proof can I give of the whirl of misery into which we were suddenly thrown, than by telling you that it was not till we saw my brother's first examination in a newspaper, officiously brought to us by a neighbour, that we knew he had been before a magistrate at all. I read, however, that he was remanded till the next day; so on the next day I resolved to go.

I mentioned no word to either Ellen or my mother; but, quietly putting on my bonnet and shawl, slipped out of the house, and was among the first in the court. It was not till then that our awful position descended in all its horror upon me. Oh! the agony I suffered; and my disgust at the bloated men, and the low vicious women, who were stationed in that narrow dock, in which my brother was presently to stand! I could have gnawed, in my despair, the very wooden frame before me. I felt till I could feel no more; so I helplessly bowed my face upon my clenched hands, and prayed for strength to be supported in that dreadful time. Then, my head being still down, I heard George's name-our name, sir-my name-a scrambling of feet, a subdued murmur, the voice of the magistrate, and then another, which might have been in the court, or miles and miles away, asking for another remand. Remanded accordingly, the papers said next day. I didn't hear it; I seemed

fixed by a sort of convulsion to the spot. At last, by a heart-breaking effort, I rose up quite calm, and walked composedly into the narrow street: then the reaction came; exhausted, I leaned against the railing round the exterior of the court, and patiently waited for strength to go home.

There are certain periods, even in our waking life, when time becomes annihilated. I could have been scarcely a minute in that dreamy trance, yet (as it is said to be in the moment before death) each minute detail of the past moved before me, with quick flashes of remembrance. I saw the scene of my laughing childhood, remembered the kind of modified gladness which welcomed Ellen into the world, and the pent-up joy which burst forth when George was born, and my father kissed a son. But out of all this rose the conviction of a necessity for action-not action delayed and uncertain, but immediate and decisive.

A gentleman, who had been watching from the other side of the street, at that moment crossed the road and accosted me. "I was," he supposed, "some relative of the accused; did I want legal assistance?" Of course I wanted legal assistance: I had never thought of it before. "He would appear," he said, for George, "for two guineas; the next would be the final remand." I hadn't two guineas in the world, so he agreed to accept one, which I promised he should have on the morning of the next hearing, which was in three days.

I felt more composed; there was a duty to be done, and its performance soothed and diverted my mind. When I got home, I found Alfred had called in my absence; he begged that I would command him in any way. So Ellen took a note to him in the evening, in which I stated our emergency, and requested the loan of three pounds till I could come to some settlement on our affairs. He gave Ellen all he had, which only amounted to fifteen shillings.

Now the sum we ourselves possessed was nearly exhausted; we had to live, and there was my poor brother's lawyer to pay. I was naturally rather fidgetty, till Ellen remembered that there was one article of value still undisposed of an old "spade guinea." It had been given to my mother by her godfather, and by her, as a sort of love-token, to my father. It was fastened by him in the bottom of a punch ladle. When our things were sold at Whimple, the ladle was disposed of, but we kept the guinea as a sort of remembrance of the old time. I had somewhere heard that a spade guinea was worth twenty-seven shillings, and that sum, we thought, would just meet our difficulty.

I was rather uneasy at Alfred's absence. He had only called once, and then, as you may remember, I was out. However, he just looked in in the evening, and excused himself by saying that he had been constantly with George. I had not been to my brother myself-not out of unkindness, but I felt just then, that I had need of all my energy, and that the only effect of an interview would be thoroughly to unnerve me.

The time was approaching for the last hearing; so, on the afternoon of the preceding day, I looked for the spade guinea, in order, by its disposal, to

pay the fee I had promised. I could find it nowhere. At last, Ellen recollected that it was in my mother's old jewel box, the key of which she kept continually about her. I asked mother for it; but, do what we could, neither my sister nor I could make her understand what we wanted: so, in sheer despair, we were obliged to give it up; but in the night, Ellen crept into the bed-room, and found the key in a little pocket which my mother had made in her stays. So we opened the jewel box together, and found the guinea between the folds of a loveletter, which, years upon years ago, my father had written to her. We took out the precious coin, red and discoloured as it was, and went to bed; but I found neither rest nor sleep.

The first thing in the morning, I took the spade guinea to a refiner's in a street leading out of Smithfield, where I was told the best price was given for such things. I was there by seven in the morning, when I learnt that the shop would not be opened till nine, and my brother, I knew, would be at the bar at ten. Oh! the misery of pacing that wretched street! I rang the bell, but the girl who answered it said "she dared not disturb her master." The cattle market was in Smithfield then, and the oaths of the drovers and the moans of the parched cattle irritated my mind almost to madness. However, it was a little before nine, when a man came at last, who was admitted into the house, and began to take down the shutters; but still I had to wait quite twenty minutes, before any one came down who could attend to me. At length the master descended, weighed the guinea very carefully, and offered me a sovereign and eightpence for it. I told him I understood its worth to be twenty-seven shillings. He replied that that was in an old time very long ago; so I had no help for it but to accept the money. He was on the very point of paying me, when something seemed to strike him; he took up the guinea, examined it, put it in some kind of vice, and in less time than I can relate, split it in halves. It was then I learnt that my mother's baby-prize-her love gift—the guinea which was to help my brother in his strait—was a false coin, was a bad one.

PELICAN STREET.

I REMEMBER Pelican Street almost as long as I remember anything at all relating to the out-door world of London. The place is associated in my mind with an event in my personal history which was profoundly interesting to me, if to no one else, at the time it took place. The fact is, that on the very day when I first assumed the toga virilis, in the shape of pepper-and-salt pantaloons with pockets in them, and an invisible-green jacket with rollypooly buttons stuck as thick as peas in a podon that very day I first saw Pelican Street. Now I felt myself a man, and strutted along with conscious dignity, which, to an observing eye, must have told how recent was the metamorphosis I had undergone.

At that time of day Pelican Street was a cul-de

sac, and had doubtless been so ever since it was a

street at all. It was owing to this very circumstance, probably, that it possessed a chapel, which my parents attended. It even then was an ancient brick building begrimed with London smoke, and architecturally contrived to appear as much like a private dwelling, or rather like several private dwellings amalgamated together, as possible. It had been built at a time when nonconformity was in very bad odour; when to dissent was to be suspected and persecuted; and when the wisest thing that nonconformists could do, if they wished to worship in peace and quietness, was to withdraw themselves as far as practicable from public observation. True, that time had long passed away, but there stood the chapel; and there, like many other similar memorials of the same epoch, it yet stands, though its days of glory are no more.

In my boyhood I was often despatched to Pelican Street on messages of various import. Nurse Grantham lived there, in a house that had a dozen bells at least, whose handles bristled on the doorposts; and whenever there was illness at home, she had to be summoned. The street was not a firstrate street-anything but that. There was a mangle in it; there was a cobbler who worked in a sort of kennel under a parlour window, with his sharp tremulous nose on a level with the pavement; and not far from him, a man in a similar niche sat carving the soles of clogs and pattens out of willow wood. Still, it was a respectable street notwithstanding: polished brass-plates glittered on most of the doors; sober-looking people went in and out; and though there was a whole colony of small children, they played and sported under surveillance, and for the most part went to school in school-hours. The end wall, which blocked the thoroughfare, was a blank lofty mass of brick, with nothing in the shape of a window save a couple of closed doors near the roof, over which doors projected the block and pulley of a crane wound up from within, and used for raising bales of goods from waggons, which once or twice a week came rumbling and clattering along the street, and whose arrival was always a source of pleasant excitement to the little unfledged Pelicans. I have seen them, when the goods were out, climb into the waggon among the straw till it was crammed with their merry faces, while the broad-faced, burly waggoner, as pleased as they, would walk his team gently over the pavement, to give them a couple of minutes' ride. I suspect now, though I never thought of it then, that "lodgings" must have been the staple article of commerce in the locality, and that the street must have been the refuge of a section at least of that numerous class who had seen better days.

I had to leave London, and fight my battle of life elsewhere. Thirty years and more had-flown, I was going to say, but that is not the word-had trampled over my head before I saw Pelican Street again, with its little unpretentious chapel. Ah! that high-backed pew, where I sat in my first broad cloth and buttons! where now are its tenants of those days? where the light of the dear eyes that shed sunshine wherever they glanced? Gonequenched-vanished for ever from the earth. But