Another shock awaited Mrs. Malachi Dawson
in connexion with old Mr. Shaw, a personage,
one would have said, unlikely enough to cross
her path in any way.  The aged relative, from
whom the Reverend Malachi Dawson was to
inherit considerable estates in Ireland, died in
the fulness of time, and in his last will and
testament there was a bequest of a modest
annuity to his second cousin and former friend,
Gerald O'Shaughnessy, "whom I believe to be
still living," so ran the will, "and whose
forgiveness I hereby beg for an injury I did him
in our youth."  And when inquiries were made
for the said Gerald O'Shaughnessy, in order to
carry out the last desire of the testator, behold,
whom should he prove to be but old Jerry
Shaw, the strolling player!  He had run away
from his home, when quite a lad, in a fit of
despair and jealousy at the falsehood of his
lady-love, whose affections had been beguiled
from him by the second cousin, now deceased.
He had joined a troop of wandering comedians
under a feigned name, and had purposely
concealed all trace of himself from his friends and
family.  Wounded feeling, at first, and a stubborn
proud independence that belonged to his
character, afterwards, had kept him aloof from
all who had known him in former days.  And
by degrees his nearest relatives died off (his
mother had died in his childhood), and he
remained without kindred in the world, save his
former rival, himself a widowed, childless old
man.  But, nevertheless, the shabby, hatchet-
faced old actor known as Jerry Shaw, proved
himself to be, beyond a doubt, Gerald O'Shaughnessy,
third son of the late Patrick O'Shaughnessy,
Esq., of Castle Belford, in Ireland.
And consequently he was a relative of the
deceased gentleman, and consequently—it was
too dreadful, such people ought to be sent to
the treadmill, Augusta declared—a distant kinsman
of the Reverend Malachi Dawson himself!
Jerry, however, showed no disposition to call
cousins with any one.  He received his yearly
income quietly, and remained in obscurity as
before.  He did not even cease to perform in
public, saying that he was used to the theatre
now, and should miss it; but he departed from
beneath Mr. Hutchins's roof, and removed to
a neat lodging near to a suburban cemetery,
wherein he caused to be erected an
unpretending monument over a little grave, with
a broken lily carved in marble for its only ornament.

Miss Fluke, after presiding impressively at the
weddings of two or three of her younger sisters,
began to grow discontented and uneasy at home,
and finally—the departure from England of some
friends of hers favouring the project—she
resolved to emigrate to Australia.  Thence she
wrote immensely long letters home to all her
friends, which letters were most frequently
overweight, and necessitated the payment of double
postage.  The vast extent of that new land
appeared to afford scope for the fullest development
of Miss Fluke's remarkable energies.  She
visited several of the gold-diggings, and distributed
tracts to the heterogeneous population
which was to be found there.  One of her
chief converts was a Chinese, about the
hopefulness of whose spiritual condition Miss Fluke
wrote quires of pious rapture.  But, suddenly,
all mention of this interesting individual ceased,
and it afterwards appeared, on Miss Fluke's own
solemn testimony, that her Celestial protégé had
decamped one night, no one knew whither,
bearing with him his instructress's gold watch,
doubtless as a memento of her teaching.  Mrs.
Malachi Dawson was the fortunate recipient of
a great deal of Miss Fluke's epistolary
eloquence, but as the correspondence on her side
was by no means kept up with similar vigour,
it languished by degrees, and at last died a
natural death.  The last letter which Augusta
received from her friend was chiefly remarkable
for a novel and striking division of mankind
into four classes.  There had been a conflagration
in some new settlement where Miss Fluke
was temporarily residing, and in describing the
efforts of the inhabitants to subdue the fire, she
wrote: "I must bear witness to the very great
zeal and energy displayed by our dear flock.
Every one laboured with edifying eagerness.
Men, women, children, and missionaries, all
exerted themselves to the utmost."

At the latest accounts, Miss Fluke was Miss
Fluke still.

Alfred Trescott had disappeared from London
after his sister's death, and for a long time
no clue to his whereabouts was discovered.
But one autumn, five or six years after their
marriage, when Clement and Mabel were staying
for a while at a much-frequented German
watering-place, they had a strange glimpse of
him.  It happened thus.  The children—Dooley
was now an uncle, and made one of the
family party on their holiday tour, as did also
Mrs. Saxelby—had been sent home to bed, and
Clement and his wife were sauntering arm in
arm together through the trim alleys, enjoying
the twilight sweetness of the air, when a figure,
coming trom behind them, brushed close to
Mabel, and flitted swiftly onward through the
dusk.  Mabel started violently, and clung to
her husband's arm.

"What is the matter, love?" he asked;
"what has alarmed you?"

"Dear Clement, that was Alfred Trescott who
went by us just now!  He or his ghost, I am
certain of it."

"Probably himself in the flesh, then, Mabel.
But how can you be sure?  It is so dark, and
you scarcely caught a glimpse of the man's
face."

"No; but yet I am sure it was he.  There
was something in the gait, in the turn of the
head, that I recognised instantly.  He went
towards the gaming-tables.  Let us follow, Clement,
and convince ourselves."

They entered the brilliantly lighted rooms,
where around the green tables the same old
crowd of faces, so well known, and so often
described, were intent on their game.  For a
time they saw no one at all resembling Alfred,