was not quite an unworthy one. He would
want to help me out of his little savings, I
knew, and I knew that he ought not to help
me, and that I must not suffer him to do it.

It was a thoughtful evening with both of us,
But, before we went to bed, I had resolved that I
would wait over to-morrow, to-morrow being
Sunday, and would begin my new course with
the new week. On Monday morning I would
speak to Joe about this change, I would lay
aside this last vestige of reserve, I would tell
him what I had in my thoughts (that Secondly,
not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided
to go out to Herbert, and then the change
would be conquered for ever. As I cleared,
Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had
sympathetically arrived at a resolution too.

We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we
rode out into the country, and then walked in
the fields..

"I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe," I
said.

"Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come
round, sir."

"It has been a memorable time for me, Joe."

"Likeways for myself, sir," Joe returned.

"We have had a time together, Joe, that I
can never forget. There were days once, I
know, that I did for a while forget; but I never
shall forget these."

"Pip," said Joe," appearing a little hurried
and troubled, "there has been larks. And, dear
sir, what have been betwixt us—have been."

At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came
into my room, as he had done all through my
recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was
as well as in the morning?

"Yes, dear Joe, quite."

"And are always a getting stronger, old
chap?"

"Yes, dear Joe, steadily."

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with
his great hand, and said, in what I thought
a husky voice, "Good night!"

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and
stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell
Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before
breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his
room and surprise him; for, it was the first day
I had been up early. I went to his room, and
he was not there. Not only was he not there,
but his box was gone.

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on
it found a letter. These were its brief contents.

"Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur
you are well again dear Pip and will do better without
"Jo.
"P.S. Ever the best of friends."

Enclosed in the letter, was a receipt for the
debt and costs on which I had been arrested.
Down to that moment I had vainly supposed
that my creditor had withdrawn or suspended
proceedings until I should be quite recovered.
I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the
money; but, Joe had paid it, and the receipt was
in his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow
him to the dear old forge, and there to have
out my disclosure to him, and my penitent
remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my
mind and heart of that reserved Secondly, which
had began as a vague something lingering in my
thoughts, and had formed into a settled
purpose?

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy,
that I would show her how humbled and
repentant I came back, that I would tell her how
I had lost all I once hoped for, that I would
remind her of our old confidences in my first
unhappy time. Then, I would say to her, "Biddy,
I think you once liked me very well, when my
errant heart, even while it strayed away from
you, was quieter and better with you than it
ever has been since. If you can like me only
half as well once more, if you can take me with
all my faults and disappointments on my head,
if you can receive me like a forgiven child (and
indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much
need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand),
I hope I am a little worthier of you than I was
—not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall
rest with you to say whether I shall work at
the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for
any different occupation down in this country,
or whether we shall go away to a distant place
where an opportunity awaits me, which I set aside
when it was offered, until I knew your answer.
And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that
you will go through the world with me, you will
surely make it a better world for me, and me a
better man for it, and I will try hard to make it
a better world for you."

Such was my purpose. After three days more
of recovery, I went down to the old place, to
put it in execution; and how I sped in it, is all
I have left to tell.

UNDERGROUND LONDON.

CHAPTER II.

IF the ghost of Dr. Johnson had not been
so extremely hard worked of late years, it
would be a pleasure to call it up (of course in
connexion with the ghost of Mr. Boswell), in
order to get a satisfactory definition of a main
sewer ; but inasmuch as we cannot avail ourselves
of the doctor's defining wisdom, we must scramble
through the entrance to our subject as we best
can, and state, with no dogmatic precision, that
main sewers are only properly so called when they
follow the run of water-courses. This is a
definition that most sewer engineers would not,
perhaps, hesitate to support, and it shows us the
natural, melancholy connexion between "limpid
streams" or "purling brooks" and black slimy
muddy underground rivers, that no one ever
thought of writing a sonnet to, since poetry was
born.

A volume of antiquarian sentiment might
be written on the old London water-courses,
or bournes. There is the ancient stream
called Walbrook, which runs into the City,
from what were once fields between Islington
and Hoxton. In old times it turned a