Then his legs seemed to give way. He sat down
and thought of his wedding-day: he began to
talk to himself out loud, as some people do in
trouble: "Bless her comely face," said he, "and
to think I had my arm lifted to strike her, after
wearing her so long, and finding her good stuff
upon the whole. Well, thank my stars I didn't.
We must make the best on't: money's gone;
but here's the garden and our hands still: and
'tain't as if we were single to gnaw our hearts
alone; wedded life cuts grief a two. Let's make
it up and begin again. Sixty, come Martinmas:
and Susan forty-eight: and I be amost weary of
turning moulds!"

He went round to his front door.

There was a crowd round it; a buzzing
crowd, with all their faces turned towards his
door.

He came at their backs, and asked peevishly
what was to do now. Some of the women
shrieked at his voice. The crowd turned about;
and a score of faces peered at him: some filled
with curiosity, some with pity.

"Lord help us!" said the poor man, "is there
any more trouble a foot to-day? Stand aside,
please; and let me know."

"No! no!" cried a woman, "don't let him."

"Not let me go into my own house, young
woman?" said Maxley, with dignity: "be these
your manners?"

"Oh, James: I meant you no ill. Poor man!"

"Poor soul!" said another.

"Stand aloof!" said a strange man. " Who
has as good a right to be there as he have?"

A lane was made directly, and Maxley rushed
down between two rows of peering faces, with
liis knees knocking together, and burst into his
own house. A scream from the women inside,
as he entered, and a deep groan from the strong
man bereaved of his mate, told the tragedy. Poor
Susan Maxley was gone.

She had died of Breast-pang, within a minute
of his leaving her; and the last words of two
faithful spouses were words of anger.

All these things, and many more less tragic,
but very deplorable, came to Alfred Hardie's
knowledge, and galled and afflicted him deeply.
And several of these revelations heaped discredit
high upon Richard Hardie, till the young man,
bom with a keen sense of justice, and bred
amongst honourable minds, began to shudder at
his own Father.

Herein he was alone: Jane, with the
affectionate blindness of her sex, could throw her
arms round her father's neck, and pity him for
his losses—by his own dishonesty—and pity him
most when some victim of his unprincipled
conduct died, or despaired. " Poor Papa will feel
this so deeply," was her only comment on such
occasions.

Alfred was not sorry she could take this view;
and left her unmolested to confound black with
white, and wrong with right, at affection's
dictates; but his own trained understanding was not
to be duped in matters of plain morality. And
so, unable to cure the wrongs he deplored,
unable to put his conscience into his pocket, like
Richard Hardie, or into his heart like Jane, he
wandered alone, or sat brooding and dejected:
and the attentive reader, if I am so fortunate as
to possess one, will not be surprised to learn
that he was troubled too with dark mysterious
surmises he half dreaded, yet felt it his duty, to
fathom. These and Mrs. Dodd's loss by the
Bank combined to keep him out of Albion Villa.
He often called to ask after Captain Dodd, but
was ashamed to enter the house.

Now Richard Hardie's anxiety to know
whether David was to die or live had not declined,
but rather increased. If the latter, he was now
resolved to fly to the United States with his
booty, and cheat his alienated son along with the
rest: he had come by degrees down to this. It
was on Alfred he had counted to keep him
informed of David's state: but, on his putting a
smooth inquiry, the young man's face flushed
with shame, or anger, or something, and he gave a
very short, sharp, and obscure reply. In reality
he did not know much, nor did Sarah, his
informant: for of late the servants had never been
allowed to enter David's room.

Mr. Hardie after this rebuff, never asked Alfred
again; but having heard Sampson's name
mentioned as Dodd's medical attendant, wrote and
asked him to come and dine, next time he should
visit Barkington: "You will find me a fallen
man," said he; " to-morrow we resign our house
and premises and furniture to the assignees,
and go to live at a little furnished cottage not
very far from your friends the Dodds. It is
called 'Shamrock Cottage.' There, where we
have so little to offer besides a welcome, none
but true friends will come near us; indeed, there
are very few I should venture to ask for such a
proof of fidelity to your broken friend.
"R. H."

The good-hearted Sampson sent a cordial reply,
and came to dinner at Shamrock Cottage.

Now all Hardie wanted of him in reality was
to know about David; so when Jane had retired,
and the decanter circulated, he began to pump
him by his vanity. "I understand," said he,
"you have wrought one of your surprising cures
in this neighbourhood. Albion Villa!"

Sampson shook his head sorrowfully: Mr.
Hardie's eyes sparkled: Alfred watched him
keenly and bitterly.

"How can I work a great cure after those
ass-ass-ins Short and Osmond? Look, see! the
man had been wounded in the hid, and lost blood:
thin stabbed in the shoulder; and lost more
blood."—Both the Hardies uttered an ejaculation
of unfeigned surprise.—"So, instid of recruiting
the buddy thus exhausted of the great
liquid material of all repair, the profissional ass-
ass-in came and exhausted him worse; stabbed
him while he slept; stabbed him unconscious,
stabbed him in a vein: and stole more blood from
him. Wasn't that enough? No! the routine