implacable, and instructed Lile Jack to sell
her up.

Our friend went down the street towards
the widow's humble dwelling in a very
unusual state of perturbation. The white hat
with the calculations on the crown was
constantly off his head, and brought into rude
collision with posts and barrows. The
quantities of snuff he took were enormous, and his
mutterings prodigious. He had sent a man
before him as an avant-courrier of evil—a man
whose boots were hideous on the pavement
as he brought bad tidings; but he was sorely
discomposed on reaching the widow's cottage
to find little Oby at the door, who ran to
embrace his knees, and hailed him affectionately
as " mon." Oby was a great ally and
favourite of Lile Jack, and would frequently
toddle up to the auctioneer's shop, and cry
out " Mon, com' out an' gi' Oby claggett"
(which claggett is a description of hardbake),
whereupon, if Jack were not at home, the
man that was nearly a hundred years of age
would come out and talk toothlessly to Oby.

The broker hurriedly patted the child on
the head, and passed in. The catastrophe
was out. The widow was sitting rocking
herself in her chair, wringing her hands and
crying bitterly. The baby, cast upon its own
resources and upon the wide wide world, was
lamenting its miseries with prophetic anticipation;
Tom Bagshaw, Lile Jack's assistant,
had already commenced his inventory; and
Oby, seeing that grief was the order of the
day, had taken to crying quietly over a waist-
coat piece. Under these circumstances there
was nothing left for Lile Jack to do but to
take more snuff, and ill-treat the long-suffering
white hat worse than ever.

"My poor father," cried the widow in her
anguish, " oft said that th' prison or th' poor-
house wor nit built that should hold yan o'
his bairns. But I mun gang till baith—till
baith, Mr. Scotforth, and th' lile bairns; the
creetur that canna walk nor speak, and Oby
so frile an' delicate. I'll never rise again,
Mr. Scotforth, I'll never rise again."

"It's hard to bear, my lass," quoth Lile
Jack; " cruel hard to bear. But we a' ha' our
burdens, and mun bear them. And yet," he
added, despondingly, "there 's auld Middlegate
Mumping Wilson up at t' Bank, wi'
mair goud than wad fill thy house, and Miss
Sturk, t' mantymecker wi' hunderds, an Sangate
Gregson, that smells o' brass, an yit nit a
penny for thee."

"If it war nit for t' bairns I wad gang to
service. I wad work i' th' crofts and fields,
i' th' shippons and middens; but can I leave
these bonny creeturs?"

"Puir body, puir body! " murmured Lile
Jack, doing the white hat a mortal injury.

"Can I coin goud ? Can I mak' siller oot
o' barley meal? " asked the widow, despairingly."

"It's hard," quoth Lile Jack, wrenching
a button off his waistcoat. " It's bitter hard,"
he continued, manifesting a strong desire to
tear the brim of the white hat from the body.
"It's domed hard! " cried the compassionate
broker, throwing the white hat into the fireplace.

But the inventory was completed, and
Jack had his business to do. He spoke the
widow fair, and promised to exert his utmost
influence with that hard man and teadealer
Smell o' Brass, with but very faint hopes in
his own mind, however, of making any impression
upon that auriferous person. He
was about departing, and had beckoned Oby
to him, with the intention of patting him
upon the head, and slipping a sovereign into
his hand, when the child ran to him, and
caught hold of his legs.

"I'se gang yam wi' thee," he cried. " Lemme
gang yam wi' thee, thou lile mon."

"Nay, nay, my bairn," answered Lile Jack,
shaking his head kindly; " there's bigger
bairns nor thee at yam that sup a' the parritch
I can find meal for. Thee cannot come
wi' me, Oby!"

"I'se gang yam wi' thee, I'se gang yam wi'
thee," repeated the little boy, looking up
imploringly, his blue eyes swimming with
tears, into Lile Jack's face.

The compassionate broker looked towards
where the white hat was, as if to ask that
ill-used article of apparel for advice. But
the white hat was grovelling in the dust and
ashes of the fireplace, as if in profound disgust
at its maltreatment, and Lile Jack not being
able to avail himself of its counsel, followed,
instead, that of his own true heart.

Lile Jack spoke, as he had promised, to
the redoubtable Smell o' Brass. I fancy,
however, that he spoke to him much as the
gentleman with the illegible, but glorious and
delightful signature, who is connected with
the Bank of England speaks to Mr. Mathew
Marshall of that establishment. At all events,
the widow's sticks were released, and she was
enabled to resume her humble business. But
she did not live long. Worn out with sorrow,
privation, hard work, and ill-health, she
soon rejoined her harmless rachitic husband
the tailor, and her weakly baby followed her
soon afterwards. Then Oby was left an
orphan indeed.

An orphan! No. He went home with
Lile Jack, and in the heterogeneous household
of that good fellow, found a list of relatives
as long as that in the Prayer-book
which enumerates the persons a man may not
marry. The man that was nearly a hundred
years old was a grandfather to him; the pockman's
niece was his aunt; and he found an
uncle in the white horse, and cousins in the
rabbits, and brothers-in-law in the starlings.
In Lile Jack he found a whole conscription
of fathers.

The child grew up to be a thin, pale, tall,
delicate lad. Lile Jack had him taught a
plain decent education. "Latin an' Greek,
and sic' like thirlygigs," he said, " were good