so I shan't be capable of seeing much improvement
in you."

The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he
grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again,
grunting forth another laugh after the second
edition of "improvement in you."

"But what's no laughing matter, Master
George," he resumed, straightening his back
once more, "is, that Young Master Wilding
has gone and changed the luck. Mark my
words. He has changed the luck, and he'll
find it out. / ain't been down here all my life
for nothing! I know by what I notices down
here, when it's a-going to rain, when it's a-going
to hold up, when it's a-going to blow, when it's
a-going to be calm. / know, by what I notices
down here, when the luck's changed, quite as
well."

"Has this growth on the roof anything to
do with your divination?" asked Vendale, holding
his light towards a gloomy ragged growth
of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a
very disagreeable and repellent effect. "We
are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't
we?"

"We are, Master George," replied Joey
Ladle, moving a step or two away, "and if
you'll be advised by me, you'll let it alone."

Taking up the rod just now laid across the
two casks, and faintly moving the languid fungus
with it, Vendale asked, "Aye, indeed? Why
so?"

"Why, not so much because it rises from
the casks of wine, and may leave you to judge
what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes into
himself when he walks in the same all the
days of his life, nor yet so much because at
a stage of its growth it's maggots, and you'll
fetch 'em down upon you," returned Joey
Ladle, still keeping away, "as for another
reason, Master George."

"What other reason?"

"(I wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if I was you,
sir.) I'll tell you if you'll come out of the place.
First, take a look at its colour, Master George."

"I am doing so."

"Done, sir. Now, come out of the place."

He moved away with his light, and Vendale
followed with his. When Vendale came up
with him, and they were going back together,
Vendale, eyeing him as they walked through
the arches, said: "Well, Joey? The colour."

"Is it like clotted blood, Master George?"

"Like enough, perhaps."

"More than enough, I think," muttered Joey
Ladle, shaking his head solemnly.

"Well, say it is like; say it is exactly like.
What then?"

"Master George, they do say—-"

"Who?" .

"How should I know who?" rejoined the
Cellarman, apparently much exasperated by the
unreasonable nature of the question. "Them!
Them as says pretty well everything, you know.
How should I know who They are, if you
don't?"

"True. Go on."

"They do say that the man that gets by any
accident a piece of that dark growth right upon
his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by
Murder."

As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the
Cellarman's eyes, which he had fastened on his
light while dreamily saying those words, he
suddenly became conscious of being struck upon
his own breast by a heavy hand. Instantly
following with his eyes the action of the hand
that struck him—which was his companion's—
he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web
or clot of the fungus, even then floating to the
ground.

For a moment he turned upon the cellarman
almost as scared a look as the cellarman turned
upon him. But in another moment they had
reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar-
steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them,
he blew out his candle and the superstition
together.

EXIT WILDING.

On the morning of the next day, Wilding
went out alone, after leaving a message
with his clerk. "If Mr. Vendale should ask
for me," he said, "or if Mr. Bintrey should
call, tell them I am gone to the Foundling."
All that his partner had said to him, all that
his lawyer, following on the same side, could
urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his
own point of view. To find the lost man,
whose place he had usurped, was now the
paramount interest of his life, and to inquire at the
Foundling was plainly to take the first step in
the direction of discovery. To the Foundling,
accordingly, the wine-merchant now went.

The once-familiar aspect of the building was
altered to him, as the look of the portrait over
the chimney-piece was altered to him. His one
dearest association with the place which had
sheltered his childhood had been broken away
from it for ever. A strange reluctance
possessed him, when he stated his business at
the door. His heart ached as he sat alone in
the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the
institution was being sent for to see him.
When the interview began, it was only by a
painful effort that he could compose himself
sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand.

The Treasurer listened with a face which
promised all needful attention, and promised
nothing more.

"We are obliged to be cautious," he said,
when it came to his turn to speak, "about all
inquiries which are made by strangers."

"You can hardly consider me a stranger,"
answered Wilding, simply. "I was one of
your poor lost children here, in the bygone
time."

The Treasurer politely rejoined that this
circumstance inspired him with a special
interest in his visitor. But he pressed,
nevertheless, for that visitor's motive in making his
inquiry. Without further preface, Wilding told
him his motive, suppressing nothing.

The Treasurer rose, and led the way into the
room in which the registers of the institution