commercial place—of a Sunday, and I panting to
get on. But it was Sunday, you know.

I went to the Grecian, but the Grecian was
gone, or was become the Royal Alexandra,
or some such name. I went on to another
place not so good. Meanwhile the daylight
was coming in slowly, but the streets remained
empty. Wonderful in so great a commercial
place!

The hotel I had selected was a weakly and
failing one. The attendance was of the limpest
description. Gradually it became broad day, but
at the slowest possible pace. Then was revealed
the dismal coffee-room, with a discoloured
gamboge paper, that looked glistening and
sticky, and to which the corpses of many an
indiscreet fly adhered. There were old red and
decaying hangings drooping down to the ground
and charged with dust. The only objects of
furniture to speak of, were two framed and
glazed placards, and a sauce-bottle with a brick-
red label. One of the placards was the Royal
Liver Marine Insurance Company, Limited,
with a list of directors and an almost piteous
setting forth of the advantages that society
had to offer. You might sit for so many hours
of the day on barrels of gunpowder, it made
no difference. You might embark for the
tropics, and be a bishop on the Gold Coast.
Then their bonus, and most tempting
examples. Thus: A. had insured in the year
'45 for a hundred pounds, aged 30. This
was only '55, and see what that lucky dog
A. was getting already, either a bonus—
at his option—of two pounds seventeen
and sixpence, or, if he elected to deny
himself the bonus, one hundred and twenty
pounds at his death. The prospect was set
before one in so many appetising ways
that it seemed as if an insurer must come
at last to long for his own death in order
to reap such tempting advantages. The other
placard was Messrs. Beales and Co., house-
furnishing, &c., with pictures of the
interior of their "vast warerooms," which
seemed to be blocked up with every variety
of bedstead, with a Louis Quatorze sort of
foreman bowing and explaining matters to a lady
and gentleman making purchases. Messrs.
Beales mysteriously offered "special advantages
to newly married couples" (what could they
mean?) and to young housekeepers. There
was the red label of the sauce-bottle too, which
set forth that the sauce was "prepared from the
receipt of a baronet in the country." I am
minute about these matters, because they
were the only literature in the room, and
because through that long long weary weary day
when I was driven back upon the place from
sheer monotony, some horrid and unaccountable
fascination drew me over to study these
placards and sauce-bottle. It was Sunday,
and there were no daily papers. I came at
last to know the placards by heart. The
names of the chairman and directors were
Samuel Bullock, M.P., Decimus Bagot,
William Hipper, Dowson Boglor, and Harvey
Gibson, secretary. Then Messrs. Beales
and their "special advantages for newly
married couples." I was not a newly married
couple, nor even a moiety of a newly married
couple; yet someway I felt as if I were defrauding
myself of an unknown blessing, and longed to
go and order a bedstead. On another occasion I
might have gone up to Messrs. Beales's
establishment and seen the Louis Quatorze shop-
man and had the mystery explained; but this
was Sunday.

It dragged on slowly. I went out through
the lonely town, went down to the river, where
there was a lonely steamer setting off; thought
I would go in it, but reflected and came back.
I went out again, and came back again. I
thought it would never be done. It was a
long Sunday, and the longest of Sundays.
The strings of people went to church and came
back. It began to grow dark, and the
bedsteads and the "special advantages for young
couples" faded out.

Then went I to the railway station. I found
myself there towards nine, with the gas lit and the
holiday people coming home. There were more
bedsteads, and Messrs. Beales and their young
married couples on a gigantic scale, suited to be
seen from distant carriages. There was the long
platform to walk up and down, and there were
the cave-like coach-houses where the coaches
were laid up and seemed to be snoozing. This
whiled away an hour or so. It was drawing
near to mail time. The mail bags were arriving,
and it was amusing to watch what was done
with them. The interior of the railway post-
office, with its pigeon-holes and lamps, looked
like the interior of a steamer's saloon or
cabin, and the rueful alacrity of the employes
suggested passengers going on board. Being
up all night, the tossing on the blue cushions,
the breaking of day, the cold shiver as the door
was opened, the general "creeping" feel as we
would roll into town at six, this prospect was
too much for me. I shrank from it, and
went back to bed in a very mouldy apartment.
So the Sunday came to a close at last, and I
went away betimes on Monday morning, with
the sun shining brightly, and in boisterous
spirits.

I have yet one more Sunday—positively the
last. The scene is a charming bit of double
colour, red brick and green sward on an English
high road, or rather in these railway times
green lane, with an old tree or two, and a
belfry in the roof; and from this I start on a
very bright Sunday morning, making for a
semi-military, semi-nautical settlement some
miles away. I have never seen the nauti-
military settlement, and do not know the road,
so the whole has a prospect of adventure.
Adventure there was to be none; but the reader
will understand how pleasantly one turns back,
for reasons unmeaning as compared with the
incidents of other days, to little pictures of
this sort. The green lane went up and down,
became a high road, with gigs and a stray
waggon and a yellow van—there was a race