serve as handmaiden or scribe. More likely
the other was to be changed into her bondman
for ever. That is, as long as he should
live. Alibone, the man, was surly, and
went about distrustfully, muttering strange
things. But he was sent away soon; being
paid handsomely, with a considerable bonus
over and above his wages.

Should we please now to take that whole
piece: scenery, actors, all, at intervals of
say five years time, and then look out from
the boxes at the stage, it will be found that
Clerk Prue has wedded the broken, restless,
fiery-eyed man, who was once a lawyer; but
who has given up that trade since he came in
to a fortune. He is very quiet and submissive
to her; for he knows she has a terrible
scourge for him locked up in a private place;
which, to give her full justice, she never
brings out. For she loves him well, and
does not let her sister Conalore live with her.
O, who shall unravel the mystery of that
October night! It must wait the great
unravelling day? Pity that those who said
Martha's ghost walked the old house, did not
stop and question her. Yes, it must wait the
great unravelling day.

The old walls may not speak now, for
they have been knocked down long ago, and
there is a new establishment of baths and
washhouses standing in their stead.

FAMILIAR WORDS.

WORDS that bring back the glad and peaceful hours
    That watched our frolics in the sun and shade,
When ev'ry wind seem'd whisp'ring to the flowers
    Of lovelier worlds where happier children play'd.

Words that recall the feelings of our youth,
    The garden where our names in emerald grew;
The truth we lov'd when fairy-tales were truth,
    When god and goddess, fay and faun, were true.

The tiny words that grew from tiny acts;
    The low love-language of the childish heart;
The stammer that interpreted strange facts,
    Or strove some schoolboy legend to impart.

The names our playmates gave in mossy bower,
    When Mab and Ariel for our sponsors stood;
Names haply borrow'd from some Greek-called flower,
    Or given in praise by Love when we were good.

Nor less the words our statelier years record,
    By Fancy coined, yet bearing Reason's stamp,
Words with which Wit has played, or Life adored,
    Slaves of the king, or servants of the lamp.

The words of men who clothe our thoughts with speech,
    Gay proverb, sparkling jest, or patriot song:
Words which, like sunbeams, through the darkness reach,
    Show lowly worth, or brand imperial wrong.

The words of men that walked in war's red ways,
    Or spake their fireside thoughts to child or wife;
The simple words that giving blame or praise
    Ring down the echoing avenues of life.

Glad words that breathe of sunshine and of morn;
    Sweet words that on the wings of evening fly;
Kind words that greet the child when he is born,
    And loving words that bless us when we die.

TURPIN'S CORNER.

TURPIN the highwayman once occupied a
large house in Southwark, which, a few years
since, was converted into a model lodging-
house by the clergyman of the district in which
it stands. The district is utterly poor, the
clergyman is wholly without material support
in his work, and the lodging-house passed of
necessity into the hands of a poor man who
lets out twopenny or threepenny beds as a
private speculation. Turpin's house is near
the edge of Kent Street, in the parish of
Saint George's, Southwark, or rather in the
parish of Saint Stephen's, Kent Street, which
was one of the districts formed by Sir Robert
Peel's act into an independent living. Though
once the mainway out of London to the
Kentish seaports, and the street through
which our kings of old passed on their way to
France, and through which Henry the Fifth
came in triumphant procession on his return
home from the field of Agincourt, Kent
Street is and has been, time out of mind, one
of the dirty nooks of London.

In an old dictionary of the town, written in
Turpin's life time, which speaks of Clare
Market as a very considerable market, with a
fine new market-house, and of Cock Lane as a
pleasant lane, on the east side of Shoreditch;
we are told that in Kent Street, Southwark,
"the houses and trades are but mean, generally
speaking;" thirty years ago a historian
described it as "perhaps one of the most
dirty avenues in the neighbourhood of
London;" now, there is hardly a tenant in the
street who would not hail with joy the gift of
a quartern loaf. Its chandlers would welcome
as something like a wholesale order, the
inquiry for a whole pound of dip-candles, and
might or might not have that quantity in
stock.

Nevertheless, there is an eating-house
keeper in Kent Street who invites attention
to the cheap dinners he can offer to the million.
He asks but a penny for a basin of soup,
and will give the Kent Street dinner complete
and luxurious for threepence.

We have seen, and from time to time have
told our readers, how, in some of the dark
corners of this city, men and women sink
under a load of penury and suffering, the
weight of which, words never can measure to
the nice ears of the fortunate. In this mighty
London, where live thousands, "lost beneath
the rubbish of their means," who can only
create for themselves care in their material
life when they have quartered on it many
a needless want, to many tens of thousands
life is worse than a hard round of wants
unsatisfied. Not merely is the staff taken
from the feeble hand, but there is a sharp