go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was,
cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private
on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth
where you may see 'em from the Sou' Western
Railway when not upon the road. (Look out
of the right-hand window going down.)

"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his
hand hearty, "I am very glad to see you."

"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you
can be half as glad to see me, as I am to see
you."

"The time has appeared so long; has it,
Marigold?"

"I won't say that, sir, considering its real
length; but——"

"What a start, my good fellow!"

Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a
woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive!
I knew then that she must be really like my
child, or I could never have known her, standing
quiet by the door.

"You are affected," says the gentleman in a
kindly manner.

"I feel, sir," says I, "that I am but a rough
chap in a sleeved waistcoat."

"I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was
you who raised her from misery and degradation,
and brought her into communication with
her kind. But why do we converse alone
together, when we can converse so well with her?
Address her in your own way."

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved
waistcoat, sir," says I, "and she is such a
graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the
door!"

"Try if she moves at the old sign," says the
gentleman.

They had got it up together o' purpose to
please me! For when I give her the old sign, she
rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees,
holding up her hands to me with pouring tears
of love and joy; and when I took her hands
and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck
and lay there; and I don't know what a fool I
didn't make of myself, until we all three settled
down into talking without sound, as if there
was a something soft and pleasant spread over
the whole world for us.

Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do
with you. I am a going to offer you the general
miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by
anybody else but me, added to and completed
by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty
printed pages, six-and-ninety columns,
Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit,
thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper,
beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen
come home from the clear-starcher's, and so
exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece
of needlework alone it's better than the sampler
of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive
Examination for Starvation before the Civil
Service Commissioners—and I offer the lot
for what? For eight pound? Not so much.
For six pound? Less. For four pound?
Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but
that's the sum. Four pound! The stitching
alone cost half as much again. Here's
forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original
columns, for four pound. You want more for
the money? Take it. Three whole pages of
advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for
nothing. Read 'em and believe 'em. More?
My best of wishes for your merry Christmases
and your happy New Years, your long lives and
your true prosperities. Worth twenty pound
good if they are delivered as I send them.
Remember! Here's a final prescription added,
"To be taken for life," which will tell you
how the cart broke down, and where the journey
ended. You think Four Pound too much? And
still you think so? Come! I'll tell you what
then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret.

                             II.
     NOT TO BE TAKEN AT BED-TIME.

This is the legend of a house called the Devil's
Inn, standing in the heather on the top of the
Connemara mountains, in a shallow valley
hollowed between five peaks. Tourists sometimes
come in sight of it on September evenings;
a crazy and weather-stained apparition, with the
sun glaring at it angrily between the hills, and
striking its shattered window-panes. Guides
are known to shun it, however.

The house was built by a stranger, who came
no one knew whence, and whom the people
nicknamed Coll Dhu (Black Coll), because of his
sullen bearing and solitary habits. His dwelling
they called the Devil's Inn, because no tired
traveller had ever been asked to rest under its roof,
nor friend known to cross its threshold. No
one bore him company in his retreat but a
wizen-faced old man, who shunned the good-morrow
of the trudging peasant when he made
occasional excursions to the nearest village for
provisions for himself and master, and who was
as secret as a stone concerning all the antecedents
of both.

For the first year of their residence in the
country, there had been much speculation as to
who they were, and what they did with themselves
up there among the clouds and eagles.
Some said that Coll Dhu was a scion of the old
family from whose hands the surrounding lands
had passed; and that, embittered by poverty
and pride, he had come to bury himself in solitude,
and brood over his misfortunes. Others
hinted of crime, and flight from another country;
others again whispered of those who were
cursed from their birth, and could never smile,
nor yet make friends with a fellow-creature till
the day of their death. But when two years
had passed, the wonder had somewhat died out,
and Coll Dhu was little thought of, except when
a herd looking for sheep crossed the track of a
big dark man walking the mountains gun in