"Vil you gif me a letter to dat effeck dat I
show mein master?" said Stimm.

"Certainly," said Greyfaunt. "Who is your
master? Let me know the name of my
disinterested friend?"

"His name is Constant," said the courier.

"What! Constant, who keeps Pomeroy's
Hotel?"

"De same," said Franz.

"Ah," said Greyfaunt, gaily, "they are sharp
fellows, those hotel-keepers. Constant has, no
doubt, got wind of the girl's attachment to me,
and wants to do a stroke of business over the
affair. Very good, Monsieur Constant, I am
obliged to you."

And the heartless puppy, who would not have
hesitated to buy Lily first and sell her afterwards,
sat down and wrote a letter to the hotel-
keeper. It ran thus:

"Sir,—If you are willing to lend me two
hundred pounds, I will give you my note of
hand for five hundred, or a larger sum if you
require it. I understand that you are fully
aware of the freak of fortune which has
transformed the daughter of a circus-woman into a
sort of Indian princess. I believe, too, you
are not ignorant of the fact that she is devoted
to me, and that I have only to hold up my finger
to make her mine. Nothing stands between
me and the golden prize but the bolts and bars
of this infernal cage. You may ascertain this
for yourself, only use discretion. If you serve
me in this, you shall have no reason to complain
of your share of the plunder.
                            "Yours, &c.,
                                      "EDGAR GREYFAUNT.
     "To J. B. Constant, Esquire."

"There," said Greyfaunt, "take your master
that, and let me have an answer at once. Delays
are dangerous in these cases."

Stimm took the letter to his master, and Jean
Baptiste Constant opened and read it. He had
already been warned with respect to Greyfaunt's
character, but he was not prepared for such
heartlessness, such sordid baseness as this letter
disclosed.

"The scoundrel!" he muttered through his
teeth. "It is lucky for him I did not go,
Stimm. I should have murdered him. And it
is for such a wretch as this that poor Lily is
sighing her life away! She cannot know how
base he is, but she shall know; she shall not
remain ignorant of his character for another
hour."

Constant's first impulse was to show Lily the
letter at once, but on reflection he decided to
proceed more cautiously, and to break the news
by degrees. He told her, first, that he had
succeeded in discovering Greyfaunt.

Lily's eager look of pleasure pained him, and
filled his breast with anger. He could scarcely
restrain himself. To the torrent of anxious
inquiries which she poured upon him, he replied
coldly, without any further attempt to soften
the information which he had to convey.

"Edgar Greyfaunt," he said, "is a heartless
adventurer. Read that letter."

Lily read the letter, read it again and again
without lifting her eyes, and at length her head
sank upon her bosom, and the letter fell from
her hands upon the floor. The idol her yearning
heart had set up for itself in the days of her
solitude lay crushed and broken at her feet.

NUMBER SEVEN, BROWN'S-LANE.

THE physician who has been reporting lately
to the Privy Council upon the condition of the
London needlewomen, found that day-workers in
large millinery establishments earn nine shillings
a week, or a little more, of which half-a-crown,
or three shillings, is paid by each for the room
she calls her own, and the rest has to find dress
and food. They get only their tea at the place
of business. At nine, ten, or eleven, on a
winter's night they go home to their cold
garrets, light a fire, if they can afford fuel, and
cook the scanty supper that is the only real meal
of the day; or, if they cannot light a fire, go to
bed cold, supperless perhaps, and often thinly
clad. There is one house thoughtful enough to
keep a servant who cooks for these poor girls
at mid-day the little dinner they may bring; their
chops and sausages, potatoes, or batter in
gallipots. Many, says their cook, bring meat
only now and then; some never, but eat instead
of it bread-and-butter, or bread and pickles. A
pennyworth of bread and a pennyworth of
pickles is a common dinner of the poorer
needlewomen. The pieces of meat when brought are
often so small as hardly to be worth cooking,
often coarse little scraps, and even tainted.
This represents, be it understood, the condition
of the middle class of needlewomen, in the prime
of life. What becomes of them when they are
old? As a common rule, with, of course, many
exceptions, a dressmaker as old as thirty-five
can hardly get employment in a fashionable
house, for she is prematurely aged, her fingers
have lost suppleness, her jaded mind has lost
the interest in dress that keeps up what is
called taste among women. What becomes,
then, of the old dressmakers? Mrs. Chevalier,
the manager of a Home in Great Ormond-
street, explains their case in this way: "Taking
any moderately good worker it is found that
she continues stationary only for a few years.
Some rise in their calling, becoming in
succession second and first hands, and at last,
having saved money, go into business on their
own account; others marry and leave their
occupation; others, after mastering dressmaking
and millinery, take service as ladies' maids; and
lastly, too many go down in the scale, are found
not to be good enough for their employment,
and degenerating into poor needlewomen, drift
away eastward."

When we hear of distress in London that has
drifted away eastward, we simply feel that it has
been added as one drop more to a heavy cup
of bitterness. For many a mind the West and