Thus, after having unconsciously passed through peril and danger, the heroine of this story may be said to have found a place in the world. Lowly indeed was her home--as low as a grave; but as from the grave, where the lifeless clay rots and moulders, the spirit rises to purer space, so doubtless will the Duchess of Rosemary Lane find means to rise in her mortal state, to a higher rung in the ladder of life than the humble cellar of Seth Dumbrick. At present she is helpless, dependent on strangers for food and shelter--thrown into the arms of charity, and saved from early suffering by the cunning and devotion of a child but two or three years older than herself.

From the evening of Seth's party his fame increased, and that of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was firmly established. The gossips were firmly convinced that a thrilling mystery was connected with the child's birth, and the title of Duchess was willingly admitted. It conferred distinction upon the neighbourhood, and, apart from that consideration, it was pretty and fantastic, and took the fancy of the humble folk. Her position as the aristocratic head of Rosemary Lane being, therefore, indisputably recognised, the Duchess at once assumed her proper position in society.

She held her court in the narrow byways and thoroughfares of the district, and no monarch ever had a more devoted and admiring following. All the children in and about Rosemary Lane walked in her train, and wherever she sat and made her throne, in mud-gutter or on windowsill, she was surrounded by flatterers, aping their betters in a short-sighted, wrong-headed fashion; for from this little queen of the humble streets, nothing was to be gained but smiles and thanks. Which renders apparent the fact that, although, as has been demonstrated, these children were to some extent worldly, they were not yet sufficiently wise to know that the heart is a good-enough mint in its way, but that its coinage is scarcely available for material uses.

It was by her beauty, and the pride which her worshipper, Sally Chester, took in her, that her position was chiefly maintained. Sally was scarcely ever seen with a clean face; the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was scarcely ever seen with a dirty one. Sally was never without rents in her clothes and holes in her stockings; the Duchess was invariably a picture of neatness. Sally's hair hung always in wild disorder about her thin, sallow face; the Duchess's was always carefully combed and smoothed. "A duchess!" exclaimed many a woman; "upon my word, she looks like one!" It was the fashion with many of the youngsters to bite their nails; she never did. Her little plump fingers were generally white and clean, and her nails were seldom, if ever, in mourning. And Seth Dumbrick took care of her feet. It became his whim to make for his new charge the prettiest boots and shoes, which were at once the envy and admiration of her playmates. She received all the court paid to her, all the flatteries of her worshippers, all the adoration which Sally poured upon her, with queenly composure. There are natures with a wondrous capacity for bestowing love, and whose sweetest pleasure it is to lavish affection on an endeared object. Such a nature Sally possessed, and it had found its idol.

But had not the Duchess of Rosemary Lane been distinguished and made conspicuous by circumstances not dependent upon herself, she would have claimed attention from certain qualities peculiarly her own. In conjunction with her beauty, she had, when she was puzzled or pleased, quaint tricks of expression indescribably winning, and when no actual passion or emotion lighted up her features and they were in repose, she looked so sweet and pure that all hearts were instinctively attracted towards her.

Seth Dumbrick, when he adopted the girls, had done so with a full intention to perform his duty by them. There was more than one difficulty, however, for which he was utterly unprepared, and the first of these presented itself in the person of Mrs. Chester's "lovely lad," Ned.

Upon his mother's departure to her new sphere of duties, this estimable young gentleman found himself without a home; whereupon he began, after the usual custom of such natures, to repine bitterly at fate because of his unfortunate lot. But fate is an insensible antagonist, and, repine at it as you will, you cannot make it feel. Ned Chester cast about for some more vulnerable foe, and by a curious process of reasoning, he selected Seth Dumbrick. His sister Sally and the Duchess of Rosemary Lane played important parts in the belief, and it led him to the opinion that, in adopting them, Seth Dumbrick had inflicted a distinct injury upon him. With this injury rankling in his mind, he, some three months after his mother's departure, presented himself at Seth Dumbrick's stall. Seth Dumbrick was not the first to speak. He saw that Ned Chester was not sober, and he had no desire to quarrel with him.

"Well, you Dumbrick!" exclaimed Ned.

Seth Dumbrick merely smiled; the most irritating answer he could have made.

"You Dumbrick, do you hear?" demanded Ned.

"Oh, yes, I hear," quietly replied Seth. "What do you want?"

"My sister."

"Sally!" called Seth Dumbrick. "Here's your brother wants to see you."

Sally came up from the cellar, accompanied by the Duchess. They stood by Seth's side, who proceeded with his work in silence. Ned Chester gave Sally a wrathful look, and made as though he would clutch her. Seth, an attentive observer of every look and movement, interposed his arm.

"What's that for?" cried Ned Chester, fancying that he saw his opportunity.

Seth Dumbrick looked at his bare arm contemplatively, as though that was the subject upon which Ned Chester desired information. His shirt sleeves were tucked up to his shoulders, and his muscles made no mean display.

"What's that for?" he echoed, holding out his arm, and straightening it, so that his clenched fist almost touched the young man's face.

Ned Chester started back with an exclamation of alarm; he was not a brave man.

"Are you going to hit me?" he cried.

"No," said Seth Dumbrick; "there's no call to hit you, I take it. I thought you asked what my arm was for. Well, it's for work. Yours is for play, I suppose. But as my arm has come into the conversation, let me tell you that it's an arm that can take its own part, though it's many a year ago since it struck anything more sensible than leather."

The hint was too plain to be mistaken. Ned Chester turned to Sally.

"Sally," he whined, "haven't you got something to say to your poor brother?"

Sally considered for a moment, and made up her mind once and for all, if the tone in which she spoke could be taken as an indication.

"No," she said, "I ain't got nothink to say, and I don t want to have nothink to do with you."

"By which," added Seth Dumbrick, as a strong endorsement, " I should understand, if I was in your place, that my room would be better than my company."

"You little viper!" exclaimed Ned Chester wrathfully, addressing his sister, and would have continued but that Seth interrupted him with:

"Stop, stop; this young lady's under my protection. If she doesn't want to say anything to you, you shan't make her. Go down, Sally, if you don't care to stop."

Sally, glad to escape, was about to obey, when the Duchess, who had not moved from Sally's side during the conversation, plucked Seth Dumbrick's shirt-sleeve. Seth peered inquisitively at her.

"Don't hurt him," lisped the child.

A gleam of satisfaction came into Ned Chester's eyes.

"No, no, Duchess," said Seth good-humouredly, "I'll not hurt him. Nobody wants to do anything to him one way or the another. Go down with Sally."

But before the Duchess obeyed, she held out her hand to Ned.

"Goodbye," she said.

Ned seized her hand and kissed it.

"Goodbye," he said, with a triumphant glance at Seth; "there's one at all events with a heart in her bosom."

The whining tone in which he spoke was so distasteful to Seth Dumbrick that he averted his eyes from the lovely lad, and presently, when he looked up, he saw that he was alone. At the same time he observed that a pair of boots which he had newly mended was missing. For a moment he thought of pursuing the thief, but he relinquished his intention, and continued his work, with a frown on his face.

"Sally," he said, that night, when the shutters were up, "that brother of yours is a bad lot."

Sally nodded an emphatic assent.

"You're not over-fond of him."

"I've got nothink to be fond on him for," was Sally's rejoinder. "But mother she jist worships him, she does."

"It would make her sorry to hear that he'd got into any trouble--eh, Sally?"

"It'd jist worrit the life out of her--and I'd be sorry, too."

"Seen Pharaoh lately?"

"No, Daddy," replied Sally nervously.

"Pharaoh never said anything to you about your brother, did he?"

"No, Daddy Dumbrick, never."

"Ah!" proceeded Seth, getting down the Bible from which he was teaching Sally to read. "If Pharaoh was to come to you in a trance, and was to tell you that Ned Chester was going away, and was never coming back again, it'd be as welcome to me as the best week's work I've ever done in my life."

But Sally was too shrewd to risk her reputation upon a chance so remote, and with reference to this subject she did not introduce Pharaoh into the conversation for many weeks. During this interval, the Duchess behaved herself in a manner which occasioned her guardian and Sally much anxiety. Sally, running home one day, after having been out with the Duchess for two or three hours, rushed down the cellar, and up again, in terror and distress.

"Oh, oh!" she cried beating her hands together. "The Duchess! The Duchess!"

"What about her?" cried Seth, starting up in alarm.

"She's lost--she's lost! she's been kidnapped by the gipsies! I can't find her nowhere."

Seth ran at once into the streets, and Sally ran after him, with the tears running down her dirty face; but although they hunted high and low, and inquired at the police-station for a lost child, they could discover no trace of the Duchess. In a very despondent state of mind, Seth retraced his steps to his stall, Sally walking heart-broken by his side.

"It's as bad," he murmured ruefully, "as being a father in reality. Sally, if the Duchess is lost, and we can't find her, we'll emigrate."

This offered no consolation to Sally, whose tears flowed more freely at the melancholy tone in which Seth spoke.

"I'll spend every penny I've got--it ain't much, Sal--to find her," said Seth.

"Perhaps," whispered Sally, with her heart palpitating wildly. "Perhaps she's drownded."

The suggestion made Seth shiver, and he and Sally proceeded home in silence.

"I'll work no more to-day," he said when he reached the stall; "I'll not sleep to-night without finding her, if she is to be found. Here, take these things downstairs."

But as with feverish haste he gathered together his tools, he heard Sally, who by that time had entered the cellar, scream loudly and violently.

"Save my soul!" he exclaimed, as he scrambled down the stairs; "that's to say, if I've got a soul to be saved,--what's the matter now?"

He was not long in doubt. Sitting very contentedly on the ground, with two half-eaten apples and some very sticky sweetstuff in her lap, was the cause of all their anxiety, and Sally was crying and laughing over her. The Duchess's face and mouth was smeared with sweet particles, and she bore the surfeited appearance of having much indulged. She laughed at Seth as he entered, and would have clapped her hands but that they held portions of the banquet of which she had been so freely partaking. Seth heaved a great sigh of relief. When love, after a life which has been barren of it, comes for the first time to a man as old as Seth--whether it be love for a child or for a woman--it is strong and abiding. Seth's heart, which was as heavy as lead, grew as light as the proverbial feather, and a glad smile came to his lips.

"You little runaway! you little truant!" he said, lifting the Duchess to his lap, and kissing her sticky lips; "where have you been hiding yourself?"

It would have been hard to tell which of the three was the most delighted--he, or Sally, or the Duchess of Rosemary Lane. They all laughed and crowed together. Presently Seth............