MABEL'S PROGRESS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."

                       BOOK V.

    CHAPTER I. BROTHER AND SISTER.

IT is in the early part of the London season,
and the weather is bright and warm. Cautious
people, who habitually distrust our perfidious
climate, have ventured to assume light clothing,
adapted for summer wear. The watering-carts
leave tracks of black mud down the middle of
west-end thoroughfares, and splash the margin
of the hot pavements with showers that raise an
odour as of tons of damp slate-pencil. The
draggled fringe of suburb that hangs upon the
trailing skirt of the great city, bursts into
patches of dust-laden green, behind the
monotonously ugly iron railings, or the blackened brick
walls, that shelter "villa residences" from the
profane vulgar. The profane vulgar, however,
is very hard to shut out effectually. Even in
the genteelest parts of the suburbs, little grimy
hands are thrust between iron rails to seize rich
sprays of lilac or the gold laburnum blossom,
and little grimy faces, pinched, pallid, and
vicious, light and flush into something like
childhood, as they bury themselves in the
fragrant ill-gotten posies.

On miles and miles of wooden hoarding glare
great bills, bearing, in gigantic characters, the
most heterogeneous announcements addressed
to all classes of the public. Blue letters on a
white ground, red letters on a yellow ground,
black letters on every imaginable coloured
ground, setting forth such varied luxuries and
attractions for body and mind, and such infallible
panaceas for "all the ills that flesh is heir
to," as might, one would think, suffice to make
a terrestrial Paradise of the great Babylon. The
new book, the new medicine, the new bonnet,
the latest scientific improvement in crinolines,
and the most approved food for cattle, combining
a minimum of price with a maximum of
nourishment, appeal to the passer-by, side by
side, in curious juxtaposition. Nor are there
wanting appeals of a higher character. There
is a monster meeting at Exeter Hall for the
conversion and enlightenment of—everybody
who happens differ to on certain topics from the
amiably intentioned chairman and committee of
that particular society. There is high mass,
with a sermon in Italian by a cardinal, and a
full band and staff of "eminent vocalists" from
the two great Opera Houses. One especially
conspicuous announcement flares in rainbow
hues from wall and hoarding. It is the poster
of the Royal Thespian Theatre. "Romeo and
Juliet! Romeo and Juliet! Romeo and Juliet!"
repeated over and over again in every imaginable
type and colour. "The new actress! Great
and legitimate success! Crowded houses! Free
list entirely suspended! Miss M. A. Bell will
repeat the character of Juliet every evening
until further notice; supported by Mr. Alaric
Allen as Mercutio, and the company of the
Royal Thespian Theatre!"

Hundreds, thousands, of busy men and
women passed the gaudy announcement every day.
It was difficult to avoid seeing it; so it is to be
supposed that the passers-by saw it. But its
purport probably did not penetrate to the
"mind's eye" of ten per cent out of those
whose outward sense perceived it. But of all
the crowds of human beings who hurried or
sauntered past the Thespian poster that brightened
the neighbourhood of the Great Northern
Railway station, on one sunny afternoon at the
beginning of June, 18—, one individual at
least did stop before it, stood gazing at it a
sufficient time to have not only read, but spelt,
every word it contained, and, having once
moved to go, turned, and stood, and gazed
again, and finally moved away dreamily up the
resounding slope of Pentonville, that vibrates to
the rattle of wheels all through the weary day.
Up the slope of Pentonville went this individual;
a young man with a grave, sad face, and
dressed in sober mourning garments. When he
reached the top of the hill that overlooks a
dusky realm of house-tops looming through the
smoke and mist, he turned to the left, past the
White Conduit House towards Barnsbury. He
then walked more briskly for some distance,
until he came to a small newly built house,
covered with buff stucco, that made it look as
though it were made of pie-crust. The adjoining
house on either side of it was unfinished.
The houses over the way were unfinished.
Behind it stretched a barren waste partially
overgrown with rank grass, and plentifully bestrewn
with fragments of broken pottery. It gave one