there were the books, namely, six dilapidated
Bibles, some copy books, one slate, and half-a-
dozen ragged and odd leaves of a ' Reading
made Easy.' To such a school factory children
were being sent to get the hours of education
which the law makes necessary. Doubtless,
that sample is a very bad one, but too many
resemble it."

"They know the grief of man but not the
wisdom," these poor childish hearts. They
are now rescued from day-long ache and toil;
we have given them some leisure for learning,
though, as yet but little more than the
old lesson to learn.

MISSING, A MARRIED GENTLEMAN.

THE readers of Nathaniel Hawthorne's
Twice-Told Tales will remember a very
curious speculative essay on the subject of a
gentleman who took the strange whim of
suddenly absenting himself from his wife and
family, and remaining concealed for many
years in the neighbourhood of his own home,
for the purpose of observing their conduct
after his supposed death. It is an old
newspaper story, and was found, I believe, by Mr.
Hawthorne, in an American Journal. A
year or two ago it was also related in a
London weekly paper; the scene being then laid
in the suburbs of the metropolis: and I
remember a few years back to have met with it
in a French paper, wherein the circumstances
were stated to be of recent occurrence—the
mysterious husband being no other than our
old friend the Sieur X., pro hac vice, a draper
in the Rue St. Honoré. The various versions
are evidently taken from one another; but
the original story, from which they differ
scarcely in anything, but in names and places,
is found in Dr. William King's " Political and
Literary Anecdotes of his own Times." Dr.
King was a well-known scholar and a busy
literary man, in the early part of the last
century. His anecdotes were discovered by
accident, in manuscript, about forty years ago
only; but they were well ascertained to be
genuine. The story referred to appears to be
authentic, and to those who have not yet met
with it it may be found an interesting
addition to the stories of "Disappearances" in
earlier numbers of Household Words.

About the year seventeen hundred and
six, I knew one Mr. Howe, a sensible, well-
natured man, possessed of an estate of seven
or eight hundred pounds per annum. He
married a young lady of a good family
in the West of England; her maiden
name was Mallet; she was agreeable in her
person and manners, and proved a very good
wife. Seven or eight years after they had
been married, he rose one morning very early,
and told his wife that he was obliged to go to
the Tower to transact some particular business.
The same day, at noon, his wife
received a note from him, in which he informed
her that he was under a necessity of going to
Holland, and should probably be absent three
weeks or a month. . . . He was absent from
her seventeen years, during which time she
neither heard from him, or of him. The evening
before he returned, whilst she was at
supper, and with her some of her friends and
relations—particularly one Dr. Rose, a
physician—who had married her sister, a billet,
without any name subscribed, was delivered
to her, in which the writer requested the
favour of her to give him a meeting in the
Bird-cage Walk, in St. James's Park. When
she had read the billet, she tossed it to Dr.
Rose, and said, laughing, ' you see, brother, as
old as I am, I have got a gallant.' Rose, who
perused the note with more attention, declared
it to be Mr. Howe's handwriting. This
surprised all the company, and so much affected
Mrs. Howe that she fainted away. However,
she soon recovered, when it was agreed that
Dr. Rose and his wife, with the other gentlemen
and ladies who were there at supper,
should attend Mrs. Howe the next evening to
the Bird-cage Walk. They had not been
there more than five or six minutes, when
Mr. Howe came to them; and, after saluting
his friends and embracing his wife, walked
home with her, and they lived together in
great harmony from that time to the day of
his death.

But the most curious part of my tale
remains to, be related. London is the
only place in all Europe where a man can
find a secure retreat, or remain, if he pleases,
many years unknown. If he pays constantly
for his lodging, for his provisions, and for
whatsoever else he wants, nobody will ask a
question concerning him, or inquire whence
he comes, or whither he goes. When Howe
left his wife, they lived in a house in Jermyn
Street, near St. James's Church. He went
no farther than to a little street in
Westminster, where he took a room, for which he
paid five or six shillings a-week; and, changing
his name, and disguising himself by wearing
a black wig (for he was a fair man), he
remained in this habitation during the whole
time of his absence. He had had two children
by his wife when he separated from her, who
were both living at that time; but they both
died young, in a few years after. However,
during their lives, the second or third year
after their father disappeared, Mrs. Howe
was obliged to apply for an Act of Parliament
to procure a proper settlement of her
husband's estate, and a provision for
herself out of it during his absence, as it was
uncertain whether he was alive or dead.
This act he suffered to be solicited and
passed, and enjoyed the pleasure of reading
the progress of it in the votes, in a little
coffee-house near his lodging, which he
frequented.

Upon his quitting his house and family, in
the manner I have mentioned, Mrs. Howe
at first imagined, as she could not conceive
any other cause for such an abrupt elopement,