to soften, very much to soften, the severity
of the blow which so recently fell upon my
mother and myself."

"There, indeed, you show me some use in
what you are pleased to call my 'position.'
It is long since I have experienced such
gratification as in being enabled to show
some neighbourly civility, to the wife and
daughter of my old friend. Even if you
had been personally very different to what
you are, I should have been pleased to do
it in remembrance of him; but your mother
is the gentlest and the most amiable creature
in the world, while as for you——"

He paused for an instant, and her heart
beat high. Only for an instant; she
resumed her normal respiration as he laid
his hand softly on her head, and said: "If
I had had a daughter, child, I could have
wished her not one whit different from you."
She was quite calm again, as she said: "I
am so pleased to hear you say that, sir; for
as you know, there are but few to give
me that affection which you truly describe
as being the only thing worth living for.
And I am so glad that I have been able to
be of use to you, and to have shown you,
in a very poor way indeed, how grateful I
am to you for all your kindness to us, before
we leave you."

"Leave me, Marian? What are you
talking of child?"

"The fact," she replied, with a sad smile
—"the dire hard fact. We must go,
sooner or later; and it is the best for me—
for us, I mean—that now it should be
sooner. We have remained here longer
than we intended, many weeks longer,
owing to—to circumstances; and we have
been, oh, so happy! Now we must go, and
it will be better for us to look the fact in the
face, and settle down in Mrs. Swainson's
lodgings, and begin our new life."

Mr. Creswell's face had grown very
white, and his hands were plucking
nervously at his chin. Suddenly a light
seemed to break in upon him, and he said:
"You won't go until you've finished the
balance sheet? Promise me that."

"No," said Marian, looking him straight
in the face, "I'll finish that—I promise
you."

"Very good. Now leave me, my dear.
This unexpected news has rather upset me.
I must be alone for a little. Good-bye!
God bless you!" And he bent, and for the
first time in his life kissed her forehead.
"You—you won't forget your promise?"

"You may depend on me," said Marian,
as she left the room.

Outside the door, in the bay window
where she had held her colloquy with Dr.
Osborne on the night of Tom's death, were
Maud and Gertrude, seated on the
ottoman, one at work, the other reading.
Neither of them spoke as Marian passed;
but she thought she saw a significant look
pass between them, and as she descended
the stairs she heard them whispering,
and caught Maud's words: "I shouldn't
wonder if poor Tom was right about her,
after all."

AS THE CROW FLIES.
DUE WEST.    PLYMOUTH.

THE black voyager, perched upon the great
hollow globe of gun-metal, that crowns the
Beacon at the east end of the Breakwater,
looks towards Plymouth and its lusty children,
Stonehouse and Devonport. How different now
from the time when Haydon took Wilkie to
North Corner Dock to see the pigtailed
foretopmen, lounging along, smoking their long
pipes, cracking jokes at every one they met
—men, women, or French prisoners, and
jostling their way among the crowd of bearded
Jews, salesmen, and soldiers! The crow is
bewildered at the variety of roofs which
offer him halting places. The Charles the
Second citadel bastions invite him; the roof
of the Victualling Yard is tempting; the
wall of the Dockyard affords good views of
Hamoaze. On the Mount Wise telegraph he
could rest for a moment; the rope houses of
Devonport, the gun wharf, the building slips,
all need the observant bird's attention, were
his flight not so straight and swift to the Land's
End. He glances, however, with delighted eye
over the Sound from Penlee Point to Drake's
Island, from the Mew stone to the entrance of
Catwater, from Stoke Point to the highest
terrace of trees crowning the woods of Mount
Edgecumbe.

In Henry the Second's time Plymouth is
described as "a mene thing, an inhabitation of
fishers," but was soon rich enough, in its
dangerous conspicuousness, to be worth
plundering; so down came the French upon it,
like eagles on a fat lamb, in 1377, when Hugh
Courtenay, Earl of Devon, drove them off and
chased them back to their ships. In 1388 the
Gauls were at it again, and burnt part of the
town; and in 1400, and 1403 they also plundered
it. The part they burned, local antiquarians say,
is still called Briton (Breton) side; while Old
Town-street represents the uninjured side of
the quondam fishing village. The slow Saxon
nature at last roused to a sense of danger and
the necessity for more security, and in 1439
Henry the Sixth made Plymouth a corporation,
and gave it the right to fortify itself. In
1512 the ramparts were still further increased.
A gleam of light fell on the town, to which all
English eyes turned, when, in 1471, Margaret
of Anjou landed here; and in 1501 Catherine