"It is most painful, my lord. I come here
as a magistrate, and I come attended."

"What do you mean? Some London thieves
among us? They come far to little purpose,
when so vigilant a justice as Mr. Meredith
has his eyes upon them."

"Not so. I have to speak of a crime not
discovered by me. A temporary orchestra
was being erected in Mrs. Heseldine's grounds
for the marriage festivities."

"I was not aware of it. Well?"

"To complete it, there was a necessity of
taking down a ruinous summer-house."

Walford started, and turned death-like.

"A summer-house on the hill. While
making the foundation of the new building,
the body of a young woman was discovered."

"When?"

"Last night."

"What is this to me?" exclaimed Walford,
retreating several paces. Had he rehearsed
this scene many times before, that coming
upon him now so suddenly it did not kill
him?

"An antique brooch—your property—
was found clenched in the woman's hand."

"You had no clue to this," Walford cried;
"Arthur Westwood has told all, and betrayed
me. My blood is upon his head!"

He ran out of the room, rushed through
the assembled guests, sprang upon one of the
many horses at the hall-door, and was gone.

I had reached, as I have said, the middle
of the bridge, when I saw a horseman at full
speed making towards me. As he approached
and caught sight of me, he checked the horse
suddenly, and with great violence; flung the
reins from him; raised himself in the stirrups,
and cried in two wild shrieks:

"Perjured! perjured!"

The horse sprang forward on to the footway
of the bridge, and was over in a moment.
I looked over the side. Walford had sunk.
He had struck his head against one of the
buttresses.

His body was found two days afterwards.
It was washed on shore at Norland.

         MADAME FRESCHON'S.

IN the foggy, grey dawn of a January morning,
some dozen years ago, I, then a mite of a
girl aged thirteen, was left on the deck of the
City of Glasgow steamer, lying below London
Bridge, for the purpose of transportation to
school on the other side of the channel. It
was bitter cold, and my Cousin Jack, who
had come with me in a cab from Islington,
had given me a bashful kiss and gone home
again; assuring me that I should be quite
safe and that nobody would touch me; but
that as it did not appear clear when we should
get off, it was not of any use for him to wait
to see me start. I was not sorry when he
disappeared in the fog, for Cousin Jack always
laughed at me, and made me feel shy;
because though he was a great, lumbering,
awkward fellow, he was clever and made fun
of everybody—even of Uncle Sampson and
Aunt Martha, who were good people.

When he was quite gone, I deposited myself
on a bench with my feet a good quarter of
a yard from the deck, and sat holding my little
cloak very tight, while my little nose grew
ominously red with stoically repressed tears.
Beyond the vessel it was impossible to see five
yards in any direction, so that I was free to
fancy all sorts of dangers assailing me on my
perch. The first came in the shape of a man with
a mop and pail to wash the deck, who invited
me to go below, which I declined doing on the
plea that I preferred to remain where I was:
this assertion of my new-born independence
helped me to swallow down my rising tears,
and to look my position in the face. The
position, aforesaid, was, for the present, a
damp one, but I endured it with equanimity,
and, having tucked my feet further out of the
way, I speculated on the probability of seeing
home again; so dense a wall of mist was
built up between me and the shore. It
seemed almost a life-time ago since I had
choked over my cup of coffee, and Aunt
Martha, in her night-cap, had patted me on
the back, in the little parlour, at Islington,
to help it down. My philosophy could not
have been steady much longer under these
sorrowful reminiscences, when fortunately
there came diversion for my thoughts in the
shape of a large Newfoundland dog. A noble
fellow he was;—tall, and with a feathery,
black tail, and curls all over him, and
beautiful, beseeching, brown eyes, full of
intelligence and generosity. He first paid his
respects to the man with the mop, and then
trotted up to me in a friendly and cordial
manner which opened my heart to him at
once. I asked him what his name was; an
inquiry which he perceived as an overture
towards a more intimate acquaintance, and
which he answered by sniffing at my little
basket, wherein lay a parcel of delicate
sandwiches, intended to sustain me during the
voyage. He rose majestically, planted one
paw on my lap and flourished his majestic
tail, which I thought so nice of him that I
instantly opened my store, intending to regale
him with one of those dainty parallelograms
of bread and ham, as a reward for his pretty
behaviour.

I suppose his appetite must have been keen
that morning, for I am sure he was an honest
dog; but somehow, in his haste to thank me,
he knocked the parcel out of my hand upon
the wet deck, and while I said, pathetically,
"O! naughty dog! how could you do so?"
he quietly munched up every sandwich, and
then deliberately asked for more. I showed
him the empty paper and shook my head, and
suffered him to put his nose into the basket,
whence he withdrew it with a plaintive
expression of disappointment and regret, in which
it was impossible not to sympathise. He then
sat down beside me and listened, while I drew