know I am not a bit afraid of him, though he is
papa: indeed, I am ashamed to say, I govern him
with a rod of, no matter what. Do, do, do let
us all three put on our bonnets, and run and
meet him. I want him so to love somebody the
very first day."

Mrs. Dodd said, " Well: wait a few minutes,
and then, if he is not here, you two shall go. I
dare hardly trust myself to meet my darling
husband in the open street."

Julia ran to Alfred: "If he does not come in
ten minutes, you and I may go and meet him."

"You are an angel," murmured Alfred.

"You are another," said Julia, haughtily.
"Oh dear, I can't sit down: and I don't want
flattery, I want papa. A waltz! a waltz! then
one can go mad with joy without startling
propriety; I can't answer for the consequences if
I don't let off a little, little, happiness."

"That I will," said Mrs. Dodd; "for I am
as happy as you, and happier." She played a
waltz.

Julia's eyes were a challenge: Alfred started
up and took her ready hand, and soon the gay
young things were whirling round, the happiest
pair in England.

But in the middle of the joyous whirl, Julia's
quick ear, on the watch all the time, heard the
gate swing to: she glided like an eel from
Alfred's arm, and ran to the window. Arrived
there, she made three swift vertical bounds like a
girl with a skipping rope, only her hands were
clapping in the air at the same time; then down
the stairs, screaming: "His chest! his chest!
he is coming, coming, come."

Alfred ran after her.

Mrs. Dodd, unable to race with such
antelopes, slipped quietly out into the little
balcony.

Julia had seen two men carrying a trestle with
a tarpaulin over it, and a third walking beside.
Dodd's heavy sea chest had been more than
once carried home this way. She met the men
at the door, and overpowered them with
questions:

"Is it his clothes? then he wasn't so much
wrecked after all. Is he with you? is he coming
directly? Why don't you tell me?"

The porters at first wore the stolid impassive
faces of their tribe: but, when this bright
young creature questioned them, brimming over
with ardour and joy, their countenances fell, and
they hung their heads.

The little sharp-faced man, who was walking
beside the other, stepped forward to reply to
Julia.

He was interrupted by a terrible scream from
the balcony.

Mrs. Dodd was leaning wildly over it, with
dilating eyes, and quivering hand that pointed
down to the other side of the trestle: " Julia!!
Julia!!"

Julia ran round, and stood petrified, her pale
lips apart, and all her innocent joy frozen in a
moment.

The tarpaulin was scanty there, and a man's
hand and part of his arm dangled helpless
out.

The hand was blanched: and wore a well
known ring.

RIDING LONDON.
IN THREE PARTS.
PART II. OF CABS, JOBS, AND BLACK JOBS.

THERE is a very large class of Riding London,
which, while not sufficiently rich to keep its
private carriage, holds omnibus conveyance in
contempt and scorn, loathes flys, and pins its
vehicular faith on cabs alone. To this class
belong lawyers' clerks, of whom, red bag-holding
and perspiration-covered, there are always two
or three at the Holborn end of Chancery-lane,
flinging themselves into Hansoms, and being
whirled off to Guildhall or Westminster; to it
belong newspaper reporters, with their
note-books in their breast-pockets, hurrying up from
parliament debates to their offices, there to turn
their mystic hieroglyphics into sonorous phrases;
to it belong stockbrokers having "time
bargains" to transact, editors hunting up " copy"
from recalcitrant contributors, artists hurrying
to be in time with their pictures ere the stern
exhibition gallery porter closes the door, and,
pointing to the clock, says, " It's struck!" young
gentlemen going to or coming from Cremorne,
and all people who have to catch trains, keep
appointments, or do anything by a certain
specified time, and who, following the grand
governing law of human nature, have, in old ladies'
phraseology, " driven everything to the last."
To such people a Hansom cab is a primary
matter of faith, and certainly when it is provided
with a large pair of wheels, a thick round tubby
horse (your thin bony rather blood-looking
dancing jumping quadruped lately introduced is
no good at all for speed) and a clever driver,
there is nothing to compare to it. Not the big
swinging pretentious remise of Paris or Brussels;
not the heavy rumbling bone-dislocating droskies
of Berlin or Vienna, with their blue-bloused,
accordion-capped drivers; not the droschky of St.
Petersburg, with its vermin-swarming Ischvostchik;
not the shatteradan calesas of Madrid,
with its garlic-reeking conductor! Certainly
not the old vaulty hackney-coach; the jiffling
dangerous cabriolet, where the driver sat beside
you, and shot you into the street at his will and
pleasure; the " slice," the entrance to which
was from the back; the "tribus," and other
wild vehicles which immediately succeeded the
extinction of the old cabriolet, which had their
trial, and then passed away as failures. There
are still about half a dozen hackney-coaches
of the "good old" build, though much more
modest in the matter of paint and heraldry than
they used to be; but these are attached entirely
to the metropolitan railway stations, and are
only made use of by Paterfamilias with much
luggage and many infants on his return from
the annual sea-side visit. Cabs, both of the
Hansom and Clarence build, are the staple