shop in a peculiar state of flurry and excitement.
She had held honestly to Alice in her
misfortunes, and now she came to give her a
splendid order. Alice and her father were
in their little parlour,—such a poor insignificant
little room it looked after the grand old
gateway! Alice at work, very hard as usual,
and Peter getting up an antiquarian article
for the Broughton Weekly Advertiser, which,
after warmly advocating his cause in its
columns, had given him a little to do in the
way of correcting proofs, and occasionally
filling a spare half-page when there was a
dearth of news.

"Let us go into your room, Alice,"
suggested Peggie, breathlessly, and with a glance
at the absorbed Peter; so Alice rose, dropped
her sewing, and led the way to her sanctum.
Peggy plumped down there, in her glory of
flounce and feather, full into the midst of the
little white bed, manifesting a kittenish vivacity
which ought to have been defunct in her
twenty years before at least. Alice wondered
what ailed her.

"You will never guess what brought me
here to-day, Alice, so I'll tell you: I am going
to be married!"

"To Mr. Mark Liversedge?" said Alice.

"Yes, and I want you to make me my
wedding-bonnet; you have so much taste."

"I shall be very glad, I'm sure. I always
thought I should have to make it," Alice
said, with intense glee; "I have not seen
Mi Mark Liversedge since we came here;
but will you tell him I congratulate him
heartily upon his good fortune?"

"Yes, I'll tell him. I dare say he will be
very much obliged to you. You are a kind
little creature, Alice, to forgive his leaving
you,—I know."

"Well, then, Miss Hartop, if you do know,
I don't mind telling you that there never
was any chance of my liking him; because I
liked somebody else first. You are much
better suited to him than ever I should have
been," said Alice.

"So he thinks now, and, of course, I am,"
replied Peggie with an air of superiority.
"Now, let us talk about the bonnet."

So they talked about the bonnet, and
settled that; then they talked about the
wedding-dress, and settled that; then, they
talked about the travelling-dress, and settled
that; and then they talked about all sorts of
dresses to be worn at all sorts of times, and
settled them, and came round to the bonnet
again. "For," said Peggie sententiously,
"the bonnet is the crown of all, and if that
looks pretty, the rest is of very little
consequence."

About three weeks after this interview
(which was followed by almost daily interviews
on the same subject), Alice announced
to her father one morning at breakfast that
it was Miss Hartop's wedding-day, and
she was going across to the church to see her
married. "If you look out of the window
when you hear the carriages, you'll see
her too,—she'll look beautiful, and so will
Mark!" she added wickedly.

Peter winced whenever he heard the young
man's name; for, though Mark had spoken
up for him out of doors, he had quite left off
his pursuit of Alice. It would not do for a
man in his position, who was sure to rise in
the world, to have a connection like the
dismissed schoolmaster, he had prudently
reflected; so, throwing love to the dogs, he
began to pay court to Peggy Hartop and
her future money-bags with much better
success than he was ever likely to have
had with pretty Alice Garnet. On a blue-
nosed December morning, half Broughton
rushed to church to see them married.

It was on the evening of this very
wedding-day, while the bells at Saint Paul's
were ringing merrily in honour thereof, that
a little lad came up to Widow Deane's with
a message to Peter Garnet from the chaplain
at the Union Workhouse, desiring that he
would go there without delay, for Nanny
Liversedge was dying; and she could not
die easy without speaking to him. Peter
took his hat and stick, and went away down
the High Street at once. The old man did
not walk so erect now as he used to do, and
he had a humbler way with him; but many
was the friendly "Good evening," and "Glad
to see you looking so brisk, master," which
met him as he went.

Amongst those who had taken his
dismissal from Old Saint Ann's very hardly,
none had seemed to feel it so much as
Nanny Liversedge: he had brought up
her sons and grandsons, daughters and
granddaughters, and had befriended her and
advised her when others were disgusted by
her worthlessness; so that it was not remarkable
she should send for him at the last stage
of all. He was ushered into the ward where
she lay, and found that Mr. Elsworthy and
the chaplain were waiting for his appearance,
and that the old woman had not long to live.
She recognised him, however, when he came
to the bedside, and began to talk so much in
her old canting way at first, that Peter was
at a loss to know why she had sent for him;
but, recollecting herself, suddenly, she cried
out with vehemence:

"I've been a wicked woman, Peter Garnet,
but the Lord's a punishing me now. Willie 'd
no sooner got home again than he fell into
t'old ways, and they say he'll be transported
for what he's done last. But, I shan't live
to see it! You, Mr. Elsworthy, an' you,
Parson Smythe, is witness of what I'm saying
—it was I stole the five-pound note out o'
Peter Garnet's box at Old Saint Ann's,—I
stole it to help buy off poor Willie!"

Peter Garnet lifted his poor bent head
and said fervently: "I thank God, I thank
God!"

"I'd gone to beg something of Alice, an'
while she went to fetch it, I saw t' box standing