by saying, ' I'll take this set of rails, or that,
or t'other, and stick to it. They separate
themselves from the confusion, out here, and go their
ways."

Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he
came to a few cottages. There, looking about
him as a very reserved man might who had
never looked about him in his life before, he
saw some six or eight young children come
merrily trooping and whooping from one of
the cottages, and disperse. But not until they
had all turned at the little garden gate, and
kissed their hands to a face at the upper
window: a low window enough, although the
upper, for the cottage had but a story of one
room above the ground.

Now, that the children should do this was
nothing; but that they should do this to a face
lying on the sill of the open window, turned
towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently
only a face, was something noticeable.
He looked up at the window again. Could only
see a very fragile though a very bright face,
lying on one cheek on the window-sill. The
delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. Framed
in long bright brown hair, round which was
tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under
the chin.

He walked on, turned back, passed the
window again, shyly glanced up again. No
change. He struck off by a winding branch-
road at the top of the hill—- which he must
otherwise have descended——kept the cottages in view,
worked his way round at a distance so as to
come out once more into the main road and be
obliged to pass the cottages again. The face
still lay on the window-sill, but not so much
inclined towards him. And now there were a
pair of delicate hands too. They had the action
of performing on some musical instrument,
and yet it produced no sound that reached
his ears.

"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place
in England," said Barbox Brothers, pursuing
his way down the hill. " The first thing I find
here is a Railway Porter who composes comic
songs to sing at his bedside. The second
thing I find here is a face, and a pair of
hands playing a musical instrument that don't
play!"

The day was a fine bright day in the early
beginning of November, the air was clear and
inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful
colours. The prevailing colours in the court
off Lombard-street, London city, had been few
and sombre. Sometimes, when the weather
elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in
those tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-coloured
day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear
was slate, or snuff colour.

He relished his walk so well, that he repeated
it next day. He was a little earlier at
the cottage than on the day before, and he
could hear the children up-stairs singing to a
regular measure and clapping out the time with
their hands.

"Still, there is no sound of any musical
instrument," he said, listening at the corner,
"and yet I saw the performing hands again, as
I came by. What are the children singing?
Why, good Lord, they can never be singing the
multiplication-table!"

They were though, and with infinite enjoyment.
The mysterious face had a voice attached
to it which occasionally led or set the children
right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful.
The measure at length stopped, and was
succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then
by a short song which he made out to be about
the current month of the year, and about what
work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and
farm-yards. Then, there was a stir of little
feet, and the children came trooping and
whooping out, as on the previous day. And
again, as on the previous day, they all turned
at the garden gate, and kissed their hands——
evidently to the face on the window-sill,
though Barbox Brothers from his retired post
of disadvantage at the corner could not see it.

But as the children dispersed, he cut off one
small straggler a brown-faced boy with flaxen
hair and said to him:

"Come here, little one. Tell me whose house
is that?"

The child, with one swarthy arm held up
across his eyes, half in shyness, and half ready
for defence, said from behind the inside of his
elbow:

'"Phoebe's."

"And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as
much embarrassed by his part in the dialogue
as the child could possibly be by his, " is
Phoebe

To which the child made answer: " Why,
Phoebe, of course."

The small but sharp observer had eyed his
questioner closely, and had taken, his moral
measure. He lowered his guard, and rather
assumed a tone with him: as having discovered
him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of
pplite conversation.

"Phoebe," said the child, " can't be anybobby
else but Phoebe. Can she?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Well," returned the child, " then why did
you ask me?"

Deeming it prudent to shift his ground,
Barbox Brothers took up a new position.

"What do you do there? Up there in that
room where the open window is. What do you
do there?"

"Cool," said the child.

"Eh?"

"Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder
voice, lengthening out the word with a fixed
look and great emphasis, as much as to say:
"What's the use of your having grown up, 'if
you're such a donkey as not to understand
me?"

"Ah! School, school," said Barbox Brothers.
"Yes, yes, yes. And Phoebe teaches you?"

The child nodded.

"Good boy."

"Tound it out, have you?" said the child.

"Yes, I have found it out. What would you
do with twopence, if I gave it you?"