was known to mortals as Aurora," " knowing as
how her ladyship 'ad been and done it all, and
dyin' all alone in the moonshine, along o' thinkin'
on her mother's villany."

Ordinarily, where Jim Swain lay down on his
flock bed in the corner, he went to sleep with
enviable rapidity; but the old woman's words
had touched some chord of association or wonder
in his clumsily arranged but not unintelligent
mind; so that long after old Sally, in her
corner of her little room, was sound asleep,
Jim sat up hastily, ran his hands through his
tangled hair, and said, aloud:

"Good Lord! that's it! She's sure she
knows it, she knows he did it, and she hidin' on
it, and kiverin' of it up, and it's killing her."

The stipulated hour in the morning beheld
Jim Swain engaged in the task of window-cleaning,
not very unpleasant in such weather. He
pursued his occupation with unusual seriousness;
the impression of the previous night
remained upon him.

The back parlour, called, of course, the
"study" in Routh's house, deserved the name
as much or as little as such rooms ordinarily
merit it. The master of the house, at least,
used the room habitually, reading there a little,
and writing a great deal. He had been
sitting before a bureau, which occupied a space
to the right of the only window in the apartment,
for some time, when Harriet came to ask
him if the boy, who was cleaning the windows,
might go on with that one.

"Certainly," said Routh, absently; " he
won't disturb me."

It would have required something of more
importance than the presence of a boy on the
other side of the window to disturb Routh. He
was arranging papers with the utmost intentness.
The drawers of the bureau were open on either
side, the turned-down desk was covered with
papers, some tied up in packets, others open; a
large sheet, on which lines of figures were traced,
lay on the blotting-pad. The dark expression
most familiar to it was upon Stuart Routh's face
that morning, and the tightly compressed lips
never unclosed for a moment as he pursued his
task. Jim Swain, on the outside of the window,
which was defended by a narrow balcony and
railing, could see him distinctly, and looked at
him with much eagerness while he polished the
panes. It was a fixed belief with Jim that Routh
was always " up to" something, and the boy was
apt to discover confirmation in the simplest
actions of his patron. Had another observer of
Routh's demeanour been present, he might,
probably, have shared Jim's impression; for the
man's manner was intensely preoccupied. He
read and wrote, sorted papers, tied them up,
and put them away, with unremitting industry.

Presently he stretched his hand up to a small
drawer in the upper compartment of the bureau;
but, instead of taking a paper or a packet from
it, he took down the drawer itself, placed it on
the desk before him, and began to turn over its
contents with a still more darkly frowning face.
Jim, at the corner of the window furthest from
him, watched him so closely that he suspended
the process of polishing; but Routh did not
notice the cessation. Presently he came upon
the papers which he had looked for, and
was putting them into the breast-pocket of
his coat, when he struck the drawer with his
elbow, and knocked it off the desk. It fell on
the floor, and its contents were scattered over
the carpet. Among them was an object which
roiled away into the window, and immediately
caught the attention of Jim Swain. The boy
looked at it, through the glass, with eyes in
which amazement and fear contended. Routh
picked up the contents of the drawer, all but
this one object, and looked impatiently about in
search of it. Then Jim, desperately anxious to
see this thing nearer, took a resolution. He
tapped at the window, and signed to Routh to
open it and let him in. Routh, surprised, did so.

"Here it is, sir," said Jim, not entering the
room, but sprawling over the window-sill, and
groping with his long hands along the border of
a rug which sheltered the object of Routh's
search from his observation—" here it is, sir. I
see it when it fell, and I knowed you couldn't
see it from where you was."

The boy looked greedily at the object in his
hand, and rolled it about once or twice before
he handed it to Routh, who took it from him
with a careless " Thank you." His preoccupied
manner was still upon him. Then Jim shut
down the window again from the outside, and
resumed his polishing. Routh replaced the
drawer. Jim tried very hard to see where he
placed the object he had held for a moment in
his hand, but he could not succeed. Then Routh
locked the bureau, and, opening a door of
communication with the dining-room, Jim caught
a momentary sight of Harriet sitting at the
table, and went to his breakfast.

The seriousness of the previous night had
grown and deepened over the boy. Abandoning
the pursuit of odd jobs precisely at the
hour of the day when he usually found them
most plentiful, Jim took his way homewards
with headlong speed. Arrived within sight
of the wretched houses, he paused. He did
not wish any one to see what he was going
to do. Fortune favoured him. As he stood
irresolute at one end of the narrow street,
his aunt came out of the door. She was
going, he knew, to do her humble shopping,
which consisted, for the most part, in haggling
witli costermongers by the side of their carts,
and cheapening poor vegetables at the stalls.
She would not be coming back just yet. He
waited until she had turned the opposite corner,
and then plunged into the open doorway and up
the dark staircase. Arrived at the room which
formed his sole habitation, Jim shut the door,
and unceremoniously pulled away his flock bed,
rolled up neatly enough in a corner, from the
wall. This wall was covered with a paper once
gaudy, now dreary with the utter dreariness of
dirt charged on bright colour, and had a wooden
surbase about a foot in depth. Above the
surbase there was a hole, not so large as to be