herself whenever I told her we were going to
stop to take up the mails.

We had passed Watford, the last station at
which we stopped, before I became alive to
the recollection that our work was terribly
behindhand. Miss Clifton also became grave, and
sat at the end of the counter very quiet and subdued,
as if her frolic were over, and it was possible
she might find something to repent of in it.
I had told her we should stop no more until we
reached Euston-square station, but to my surprise
I felt our speed decreasing, and our train
coming to a stand-still. I looked out and
called to the guard in the van behind, who
told me he supposed there was something on the
line before us, and that we should go on in a
minute or two. I turned my head, and gave this
information to my fellow-clerk and Miss Clifton.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked,
in a frightened tone.

"At Camden-town," I replied. She sprang
hastily from her seat, and came towards me.

"I am close to my friend's house here," she
said, " so it is a lucky thing for me. It is not
five minutes' walk from the station. I will say
good-bye to you now, Mr. Wilcox, and I thank
you a thousand times for your kindness."

She seemed flurried, and she held out bolh
her little hands to me in an appealing kind of
way, as if she were afraid of my detaining her
against her will. I took them both into mine,
pressing them with rather more ardour than was
quite necessary.

"I do not like you to go alone at this hour,"
I said, " but there is no help for it. It has been
a delightful time to me. Will you allow me to
call upon you to-morrow morning early, for I
leave London at 10.30; or on Wednesday,
when I shall be in town again?"

"O," she answered, hanging her head,
"I don't know. I'll write and tell mamma how
kind you have been, and  and—- but I must go,
Mr. Wilcox."

"I don't like your going alone," I repeated.

"O! I know the way perfectly," she said,
in the same flurried manner, " perfectly, thank
you. And it is close at hand. Good-bye!"

She jumped lightly out of the carriage, and
the train started on again at the same instant.
We were busy enough, as you may suppose.
In five minutes more we should be in Euston-
square, and there was nearly fifteen minutes'
work still to be done. Spite of the enjoyment
he had afforded me, I mentally anathematised
Mr. Huntingdon and his departure from ordinary
rules, and, thrusting Miss Clifton forcibly out of
my thoughts, I set to work with a will, gathered
up the registered letters for London, tied them
into a bundle with the paper bill, and then turned
to the corner of the counter for the despatch-box.

You have guessed already my cursed misfortune.
The Premier's despatch-box was not
there. Tor the first minute or so I was in no-wise
alarmed, and merely looked round, upon
the floor, under the bags, into the boxes, into
any place into which it could have fallen or
been deposited. We reached Euston-square
while I was still searching, and losing more and
more of my composure every instant. Tom
Morville joined me in my quest, and felt
every bag which had been made up and sealed.
The box was no small article which could go
into little compass; it was certainly twelve inches
long, and more than that in girth. But it
turned up nowhere: I never felt nearer fainting
than at that moment.

""Could Miss Clifton have carried it off?"
suggested Tom Morville.

"No," I said, indignantly but thoughtfully,
"she couldn't have carried off such a bulky
thing as that, without our seeing it. It would
not go into one of our pockets, Tom, and she
wore a tight-fitting jacket that would not conceal
anything."

"No, she can't have it," assented Tom;
"then it must be somewhere about." We
searched again and again, turning over
everything in the van, but without success. The
Premier's despatch-box was gone; and all we
could do at first was to stand and stare at one
another. Our trance of blank dismay was of
short duration, for the van was assailed by the
postmen from St. Martin's- le- Grand, who
were waiting for our charge. In a stupor of
bewilderment we completed our work, and delivered
up the mails; then, once more we
confronted one another with pale faces,
frightened out of our seven senses. All the
scrapes we had ever been in (and we had had
our usual share of errors and blunders) faded
into utter insignificance compared with this.
My eye fell upon Mr. Huntingdon's order lying
among some scraps of waste paper on the
floor, and I picked it up, and put it carefully,
with its official envelope, into my pocket.

"We can't stay here," said Tom. The
porters were looking in inquisitively; we were
seldom so long in quitting our empty van.

"No," I replied, a sudden gleam of sense darting
across the blank bewilderment of my brain;
"no, we must go to head-quarters at once, and
make a clean breast of it. This is no private
business, Tom."

We made one more ineffectual search, and
then we hailed a cab and drove as hard as we
could to the General Post-office. The secretary
of the Post-office was not there, of course,
but we obtained the address of his residence in
one of the suburbs, four or five miles from the
City, and we told no one of our misfortune, my
idea being that the fewer who were made acquainted
with the loss the better. My judgment
was in the right there.

We had to knock up the household of the
secretary—- a  formidable personage with whom
I had never been brought into contact before—-
and in a short time we were holding a strictly
private and confidental interview with him, by
the glimmer of a solitary candle, just serving to
light up his severe face, which changed its
expression several times as I narrated the calamity.
It was too stupendous for rebuke, and I fancied
his eyes softened with something like
commiseration as he gazed upon us. After a short