was still alive, and was seated in the self-same
chair. His head was very white, and quite
bowed on his breast, and his long thin fingers
beat time restlessly. She spoke only a few
words to him now and then, and they were
caressing, and such as might have been used
to a child. At last she settled herself in
her own lounging chair, cut open a new
book, and was soon deep in it. Gradually
the new book found its resting-place
on the floor, and Margaret reposed
calmly. There was a rumbling of carriage-wheels
close to the house, and then a halt.
But there was no magnetism in the air to
warn Margaret of any one being near her,
more than that gentle shadowy man whom
she had tended for so many years. Then a
footstep in the hall, and hand on the door.
Even the seven sleepers awaked at last, and
when the door opened Margaret started to
her feet, fully prepared to deny that she had
been otherwise than wide awake. She heard
a deep voice say, "I know the way," then
came a face bronzed fiery red, full blue eyes,
not altogether strange to Margaret at least
she had seen such in her dreams a mass of
hair, beard, moustache, and whiskers of a
hue which was pale only beside the face.
All this surmounted a figure huge in every
way, but especially in breadth. Margaret
stood wondering and the figure stood
wondering also. Like the Ancient Mariner, "he
fixed her with his glittering eye," and as he
performed this operation he drew off wrapping
after wrapping, and at length stood confessed
as Stephen Sellon, weighing at least sixteen
stone. He was not a tall man, so appearances
did not assist him on that score. Then the
blue eyes danced with amusement, the white
teeth showed themselves, and a hearty, full,
sonorous laugh broke the ice.

"Margaret, do you not know me?" He
stepped forward, and kissed her, at first
lightly on her cheeks, and then putting her
back, with another glance and another laugh,
he followed up that kiss by many others, and
they came so fast and warm that Margaret
had not really presence of mind to resist.
"I ascertained you were still Margaret
Meriton, or you would not have seen me here
to-night. Is this your father?"

She led him up to the old man gently.
"Speak tenderly to him, Stephen, he is quite
childish now." Something in the subdued
womanly tone of Margaret's voice gave
Stephen a choking sensation; however, he
cleared his throat, and shook hands with
Mr. Meriton.

The poor gentleman looked up with his
wan apprehensive smile. "You'll be kind to
Margaret, sir, you'll be kind to her," and
then he rambled on incoherently.

Margaret had not forgotten how to blush,
and at this random speech of her father's the
blood rushed up in torrents to her hair roots,
leaving a transient crimson on her throat and
neck. Apparently this enchanted Stephen; he
rubbed his hands, and arranged his tawny
beard, and sat down, and watched Margaret
as she poured out coffee for him, with the
bright, cheerful, trusting look of twenty years
before.

"Ah, Margaret," he continued, laughingly.
"I swore that were you faded, worn, and
weazen, I would still be true; but you have
not fretted for me, you have not the assurance
to pretend it. Am I absolved from my
oath ?"

Margaret raised her eyes with a malicious
glance, signifying, Et tu Brute!

"Yes, I know," he added, surveying rather
ruefully his own ample person. "We have
both much to forgive." There was no
explanation asked, for none was required; they
both felt supremely happy.

Shall we leave them so ? Ah, young lovers!
Would you believe it possible that that happy,
handsome, comfortable-looking woman is
Margaret Meriton, who, a score of years
before, was condemned to separation,
uncertainty, and work for her daily bread; or that
good man, so jovial, frank, and portly, should
be the exiled lover. Take courage "men
die, and the worms eat them, but not for
love." They had each done their duty, not
sadly and sternly, but merrily and well, and
their tree of love blossoms, though late in
life. Perhaps, one of the things we love best
to see, is the gentle, grave beauty of some
autumnal flower, which gladdens our eyes
when the summer has fled, and the unkindly
drip of the winter rain is at hand, and the
sky is ashen grey, and our mother earth
brown and lifeless.

                        CHIP.
        THE DEODORISATION OF CRIME.
IT has taken a very long time to convince
some people of the evil of bad smells.
Ratepayers, corporations, vested rights of all
kinds, are sometimes of opinion still that
there is a good deal to be said in favour of
open drains and general nastiness; but
nobody, we suppose, from Lord Shaftesbury to
the London Scoundrel, has very much doubt
about the fatal contagion of crime that, at
least, is an offence at present stinking in the
nostrils of all honest men; and where to get
the moral lime-and-water to deodorise it is a
question that concerns every soul of us.

With transportation as good (or bad) as
done away with, with hundreds of criminals
turned yearly loose upon a world that will
not receive them, and of necessity yearly
returning to confinement—in and out of gaol
almost as quickly as the same ragamuffin
troops march out and in upon the stage of
their penny theatres—and these recruited
largely from an increasing population, with
increasing opportunities for theft in a wealthy
island, which unhappily cannot increase, and
which has no room for them,—what is to be
done?