the many journeys I've made from the Angel
to the Queen's Helm."

It was by way of taking a first step towards
the organising of a great omnibus reform that he
had provided himself with the French omnibus
conductor's cap and jacket which had already
been described as forming part of his costume.

"He thought it might lead to something,"
he said.

POLLY'S ONE OFFER.

IN SIX CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

"I'M not wishing to complain, but it is a
hard life to be left a widow with children, and
nothing certain to bring 'em up to. I hope my
girls will never marry to be left as I was. Poor
James didn't expect it, and I'm sure I looked
for something very different, or I should have
thought twice before I'd plunged into such
troubles. A family comes before you've time to
turn round, and nobody would believe the wear
and tear of boys but them that have them—not
that girls are not a terrible anxiety too. And
it isn't so much when they're little—when
they're little, after you've put 'em to bed, you
know they are safe and out of mischief, and
there is peace in the house; it is when they're
getting up your real troubles begin. Jack is no
sooner off my hands than there's Polly to think
of—poor little Polly that was seventeen yesterday,
and was only a baby when her father died—
there she sits!" and as she concluded,
Mrs. Curtis raised her right hand and let
it drop heavily into her lap again, and groaned
as if Polly were engaged in the commission
of some moral enormity past expression in
words.

The stout old lady, Mrs. Sanders, to whom
the widow was pouring out her injuries at the
hands of Providence, groaned responsive, and
looked at Polly with a slow shake of the head,
which seemed to imply that her case was bad
as bad could be. "Thank the Lord, I never
had no children," said she, with solemn gratitude;
"They'd have killed me outright. Sanders
is quite enough by himself! Nobody
knows, but them that has 'em to put up with,
the cu'rous ways of men. Take warning by
your mother and me, Polly, and never you go
to marry, to be dragged to death with children,
and made a slave of by a husband as won't let
you have a sixpence in your pocket, and him
that extravagant with his clubs and his
committees, and his nonsense, that I should never
be surprised if we was in the Gazette next
week."

Polly's rosy little dewy face laughed all over,
and she cried gaily: "That I won't, Mrs. Sanders;
you and my mother are a perfect antidote to
the romance of family affection. If ever I feel
tempted to fall in love, I'll remember you, and
be saved the folly."

"Folly, indeed, and worse than folly!"
ejaculated Mrs. Curtis, and stared wearily into
the fire.

She deserved to be weary. Mrs. Sanders
had come in at three o'clock out of the November
fog; it was now five and quite dusk in the
little drawing-room, and not one cheerful word
had either attempted to say to the other. Polly
would have run out of hearing of their monotony
long since, but there was no other fire in the
house to escape to except Biddy's in the kitchen,
which was not "redd up" till tea-time; so she
had fallen back on the patience of a contented
heart and sweet temper, and her precious faculty
of mental abstraction, which she had cultivated
to a high degree in her mother's society. And
a very wise measure too, for though Mrs.
Curtis bemoaned her widowed lot without
ceasing, Polly well knew that her griefs were
fictitious now, and that she enjoyed nothing so
much as a good uninterrupted wail with vulgar
old Mrs. Sanders. In fact, all her real cares
had been taken off her shoulders by other people
as fast as they arose, and on this particular
November afternoon, she was so much at a loss
for a grievance that she could only recur to the
event of seventeen years ago, when a beneficent
providence had relieved her of a husband of
whom, during his lifetime, she had never spoken
save as a "trying" man. Jane, the eldest daughter,
and the eldest of the family, had assumed its
headship immediately on her father's vacating
it, and had by her teaching of music and singing,
earned its daily bread since she was as
young as Polly was now. Uncle Walter had
taken James and Tom from the grammar school
successively, after helping to maintain them there
until they were of an age to go into training
for physic and divinity, the expense of which
training he bore with the assistance of Uncle
Everard; then Uncle Everard's wife, who had
no girls of her own, had adopted Lily, the
second daughter, from quite a little thing, and
had brought her up with every luxury and
indulgence of a rich man's child; and, lastly,
Uncle Robert, who was a civil engineer, had
just taken Jack into his house and office, with
the understanding that he would provide for
him entirely if his conduct was satisfactory.
The worst of this was, as Jane said, that they
could never be one house again; but her
mother, who had no sentiment, protested that it
did not matter, if they were in the way of
promotion in the world: large families must scatter,
and all she wanted was to see them get on, and
be independent, and not subject to poverty as
she had been. Jane acquiesced in the necessity
for the boys, and only hoped they might keep
little Polly at home, for little Polly was her pet,
her heart's darling and delight from the day
of her birth until now that she was a sweet,
blooming, blushing little woman.

But little Polly, for a wonder, had a fancy
for getting away from the dull suburban cottage
whence the boys were now all gone for good, and
had lately proclaimed her own intention to go
out as a governess, and not continue a burden
on Jane.

"A burden!" echoed Jane: "Why, Polly,
you are my only joy."