Little more than a single syllable could have been
spoken on either side.

He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned
them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm
securely round the daughter's waist, and held
her; for he felt that she was sinking.

"A—a—a—business, business!" he urged, with
a moisture that was not of business shining on his
cheek. "Come in, come in!"

"I am afraid of it," she answered, shuddering.

"Of it? What?"

"I mean of him. Of my father."

Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state
and by the beckoning of their conductor, he
drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his
shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into
the room. He set her down just within the door,
and held her, clinging to him.

Defarge drew out the key, closed the door,
locked it on the inside, took out the key again,
and held it in his hand. All this he did,
methodically, and with as loud and harsh an
accompaniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he
walked across the room with a measured tread
to where the window was. He stopped there,
and faced round.

The garret, built to be a dry depository for
firewood and the like, was dim and dark: for, the
window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in
the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting
up of stores from the street: unglazed, and
closing up the middle in two pieces, like any
other door of French construction. To exclude
the cold, one half of this door was fast closed,
and the other was opened but a very little way.
Such a scanty portion of light was admitted
through these means, that it was difficult, on first
coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone
could have slowly formed in any one, the ability
to do any work requiring nicety in such
obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done
in the garret; for, with his back towards the door,
and his face towards the window where the keeper
of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-
haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward
and very busy, making shoes.

ROME AND TURNIPS.

A THOUSAND years ago, and again almost
another thousand years ago, strong Rome, possessing
Britain as a province, ground our corn and
ate our oysters with a hearty appetite. The
clans of the long-haired, mustachioed and chin-
shaven, tattoo-skinned, breeches-wearing original
Britons wore the yoke restlessly; but it was firm
upon their shoulders. They yielded up their
warriors as Roman legionaries. A body of "Invincible
younger Britons" was sent off to serve Rome
in Spain. A like body of "Elder Britons" was
sent to Illyria. There was a "twenty-sixth
cohort of Britons" in Armenia. There was a
troop of Britons forwarded even to Egypt.
That was the shrewd policy of Rome. The
warriors of each country were drained from it
to maintain Roman dominion over any other
than the fatherland. Into this land there came
then, to replace the natural defenders of the
soil, legions of Dacians, Thracians, Sarmatians,
even Romanised Indians and Moors. There has
been picked up, in a field, trace also of an Egyptian
among the men of Rome in Britain. For
more than four centuries England was Roman.
Rome herself may, during the first half of that
time, have supplied many chief magistrates and
military captains; furthermore, by the complex
network ot society, stray men, women, and
children may have been drawn out of their
home in Italy even as far as Britain. Let us
believe also that enthusiastic epicures from
Rome sometimes came over to Richborough
(Rutupiæ) for the oyster season. But they
were the nations at large who were sent to
possess us. Countries absorbed into the Roman
empire supplied their own able-bodied natives
bearing Roman arms, adopting Roman habits,
and discarding even the dear mother tongue for
that of Rome. They spoke Latin, indeed,
and spelt it without absolute devotion to its
grammar; they built also Roman villas without
absolute adherence to the regulations laid down
by Vitruvius. What they learnt best was to
enrich themselves in the true oppressive Roman
way upon the province within which they ruled,
while they remained true to discipline, and
executed well the roads and military works on
which they were employed. Soldiers begot not
only more soldiers but also priests, traders, and
tillers of the soil. There was no neglect of the
commissariat; no lack of smelters and workers
in metal or glass, coiners, potters, masons,
carpenters, physicians. Races, no doubt, were
mixed by intermarriage, but the Roman towns
in England, which grew ample and rich, as their
inhabitants fattened upon the available wealth
of the land, were first colonised or occupied by
legionaries differing in race, and certainly they
had more points ot contrast among themselves
than one meets with to-day anywhere but on
what are now called, as the coasts of Britain
were then called, the confines of civilisation.
The contrast must have been visible enough
through the Roman varnish with which everything
was coated. At Ellenborough there were
Spaniards and Dalmatians, at Brougham
Germans. Manchester was occupied by Frisians,
Cirencester by Thracians and Indians, Wroxeter
by Thracians. Now we are at Wroxeter, and
have arrived there by a train of thought instead
of the express train which conveyed us thither
on a pleasant day some weeks ago.

Excavations at Wroxeter, the buried city of
Uriconium. There was attraction in the news
of these fresh diggings. Off we set, therefore.
Let it be said, rather, off I set; for there was a
time when I, too, was included in the toast of
"All Friends Round the Wrekin." I have stood
upon that large dropping from the spade of the
arch enemy. He would block up the Severn
with it, would he? I have stood on it in rainy
and fair weather, at midnight and midnoon. I
have threaded its needle's eye, dipped in its
mystic eagle's bowl, seen from its top the spreading