morning till I get speech on him. But I'd
liefer sweep th' streets, if paupers had na'
got hold on that work. Dunna yo hope,
miss. There'll be more chance o' getting
milk out of a flint. I wish yo a very good
night, and many thanks to yo."

"You'll find your shoes by the kitchen fire;
I took them there to dry," said Margaret.

He turned round and looked at her
steadily, and then he brushed his lean hand
across his eyes and went his way.

"How proud that man is!" said her father,
who was a little annoyed at the manner in
which Higgins had declined his intercession
with Mr. Thornton.

"He is," said Margaret; "but what grand
makings of a man there are in him, pride
and all!"

"It's amusing to see how he evidently
respects the part in Mr. Thornton's
character which is like his own."

"There's granite in all these northern
people, papa, is there not?"

"There was none in poor Boucher I am
afraid; none in his wife either."

"I should guess from their tones that they
had Irish blood in them. I wonder what
success he'll have to-morrow. If he and Mr.
Thornton would speak out together as man
to man—if Higgins would forget that Mr.
Thornton was a master, and speak to him as
he does to us—and if Mr. Thornton would
be patient enough to listen to him with his
human heart, not with his master's ears—"

"You are getting to do Mr. Thornton
justice at last, Margaret," said her father,
pinching her ear.

Margaret had a strange choking at her
heart, which made her unable to answer.
"Oh!" thought she, "I wish I were a man,
that I could go and force him to express his
disapprobation, and tell him honestly that I
knew I deserved it. It seems hard to lose
him as a friend just when I had begun to
feel his value. How tender he was with dear
mamma! If it were only for her sake, I wish
he would come, and then at least I should
know how much I was abased in his eyes."

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

A ROADSIDE PICTURE.

IT seems to me as if I had gone to bed last
night in the nineteenth century and waked
this morning in the tenth. The scene around
me is more like a dream of the middle ages
than a reality of to-day. The rude culture of
the fields, the armed peasantry, the
chartered freebooters, the lonely and deserted
country, the rugged road, and the mean
dwellings of a people who scorn their homes,—
all seem to recall a state of things which, I
had believed, passed away ages ago.

I frankly own for the rest, that there is a
sort of all-alone feeling creeps over me in the
midst of my armed companions. The sole
Christian among these wild horsemen and
mountain robbers of Asia Minor. And,
bless my heart! there is the cholera about,
and no medical man in the neighbourhood.
Let us get rid of these inconvenient thoughts
as soon as possible.

The building which I have bolted
comprises a few rambling sheds, not unlike farm
stabling in the north of England. A few
fowls are walking about not unsuspiciously,
as it seems to me, and my train are grouped
in every variety of picturesque attitude. Most
of them are hewing huge water-melons into
wedges with their daggers. Some are smoking;
others attending to their horses, or
gossipping with mine host and his men,—as
truculent-looking rogues as ever gave robbers
notice of a traveller's route.

There are some other fellows, who do
not belong either to our party or the coffee-
house. They are a powerful, swarthy set or
bravoes, in gay but worn dresses. They
bristle with arms. They are Tebecks; men
whose trade is robbery. They will even tell
you so themselves, if you feel any doubt or
curiosity. There they sit, however, side by side
with the Governor's guards, who have brought
me hither; and nobody, either here or
elsewhere, ever dreams of making an observation
on the subject. That is to say, nobody but
Hamed; who was for many years a highwayman
himself; and who by no means condemns
their profession, but only their mode of
following it.

"Those fellows call themselves thieves,"
he sneers, with the true disdain of a great
artist for a pretender. "Why, they will eat
your bread, and then lay wait to fire at you
from behind a stone or a tree. They robbed
my brother of fifty piastres the other day in
this way. He would have killed a dozen of
them in fair fight."

Presently there is a scream, and a
frightened flutter among the fowls; then, as
the shadow goes lengthening along the
opposite wall, I gradually doze off and
dream of the pilaff which will be ready in
due course by-and-by. I do not dream
long; and, when I wake there is a peculiar
tingling in my left ear, which reminds me
that I am in the sunny land where the
musquito makes his home. A yell from
Hamed and a blow on the ground succeed
in rousing me completely. It is
fortunate a keen eye has been watching
me. He has killed a scorpion which
was making full speed for my waistcoat.
Marshallah! let me take my pilaff and
treasure up the amusement to be derived
from the bump on my left ear till
afterwards. We have some rakee and melons
to begin with; also some pungent onion salad;
some eggs fried in red butter; and then a
violant dispute between Hamed and the coffee-
house-keeper. He offers ten piastres, or about
two francs. The latter asks two hundred
piastres. Hence the difference; which can
of course only be terminated by frantic
yelling on both sides. The affair soon waxes