blindingly thick, and all fled before it—all but
myself. I steadily groped my way towards
Joram Heckler's room. I knew the number,
and where to find it. I knew that I risked
my life, but the stake was worth winning at
such a risk. I was very nearly suffocated as I
pushed on, holding by the wall, into the
thickest of the smoke. Some man, half-dressed,
and winged by fear, came rushing by with
extended arms, and nearly overturned me. He
uttered a savage oath; the red glare of the
fire fell on his face; it was Joram Heckler.

He did not recognise me, but dashed on, only
mindful of his danger. Had he the papers with
him? I thought not. I hoped not. That was
his room then, the door of which was ajar, and
into which the smoke was rolling. Not the
smoke alone; I saw a thin red tongue of fire
creeping in over the floor, beside the wainscot.
I dashed in. My eyes smarted with the smoke,
and I gasped for breath, but smoke and fire
could not turn me now. Heckler's clothes
and dressing-case were as he had laid them;
the latter was open: no papers! His valise,
too, lay open: no papers! I struck my forehead
despairingly. He had them about him then! I
was risking life idly. Emma was lost to me!
The smoke choked me: the intolerably hot fire
had gained the bed: valance and curtains were
flaring high in a tall yellow pillar of flame. The
subtle tongues of flame almost touched my feet.
I must fly, if I would not perish. Outside, I
heard the noise of the engines and the cheers of
the mob, and then, the dash of water, as
prodigious efforts were made to extinguish the fire.

I was staggering away, when I saw, peeping
from under the bolster of the bed, a Russia-
leather pocket-book. The rascal had forgotten it
in his blind terror. The blazing curtains fell in
fragments upon me, and my hands were a good
deal scorched, but I rescued the precious prize. I
tore it open. Yes, cheque and bills, all were
there! Thrusting it into my breast-pocket, I
left the room, and struggled as I best could
down the passage. Dash after dash of water,
flung from hand-buckets, had partially subdued
the flames, and the firemen were gaining the
victory. Half smothered, singed, blackened,
but with a proudly beating heart, I forced my
way down the heated and crowded staircase—
reached the outer air, and fainted.

I have little more to tell. I am a partner in
the firm: Emma is my wife; her brother
recovered from his illness, and is now, in another
land, an altered and penitent man. The house of
Spalding, Hausermann, and Co. (I am Co.)
have granted a pension to the poor girl who was
to have been the bride of the luckless Shem
Grindrod. Of Heckler we heard no more.

VI.
PICKING UP MISS KIMMEENS.

THE day was by this time waning, when the
gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden
light that streamed from the declining sun and
touched the very bars of the sooty creature's
den, there passed in a little child; a little girl
with beautiful bright hair. She wore a plain
straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and
tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were
pleased to see him and were going to repose
some childish confidence in him, when she caught
sight of the figure behind the bars, and started
back in terror.

"Don't be alarmed, darling!" said Mr.
Traveller, taking her by the hand.

"Oh, but I don't like it!" urged the shrinking
child; "it's dreadful."

"Well! I don't like it, either," said Mr.
Traveller.

"Who has put it there?" asked the little
girl. "Does it bite?"

"No,—only barks. But can't you make up
your mind to see it, my dear?" For she was
covering her eyes.

"O no no no!" returned the child. "I
cannot bear to look at it!"

Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his
friend in there, as much as to ask him how he
liked that instance of his success, and then took
the child out at the still open gate, and stood
talking to her for some half an hour in the
mellow sunlight. At length he returned,
encouraging her as she held his arm with both her
hands; and laying his protecting hand upon her
head and smoothing her pretty hair, he
addressed his friend behind the bars as follows:

MISS PUPFORD'S establishment for six
young ladies of tender years, is an
establishment of a compact nature, an establishment
in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss
Pupford, Miss Pupford's assistant with the
Parisian accent, Miss Pupford's cook, and Miss
Pupford's housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford
calls the educational and domestic staff of her
Lilliputian College.

Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of
her sex; it necessarily follows that she possesses
a sweet temper, and would own to the possession
of a great deal of sentiment if she
considered it quite reconcilable with her duty to
parents. Deeming it not in the bond, Miss
Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can—
which (God bless her!) is not very far.

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian
accent, may be regarded as in some sort an
inspired lady, for she never conversed with a
Parisian, and was never out of England—except
once in the pleasure-boat, Lively, in the foreign
waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate
at high water. Even under those geographically
favourable circumstances for the acquisition of
the French language in its utmost politeness
and purity, Miss Pupford's assistant did not fully
profit by the opportunity; for, the pleasure-boat,
Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name
on that occasion, that she was reduced to the
condition of lying in the bottom of the boat
pickling in brine as if she were being salted
down, for the use of the Navy—undergoing at