Two or three days passed, and Mr. Whiffle had seen no reason to alter his preconceived opinion. The boy, though, as might have been expected, very ignorant, was far from stupid, and his extreme docility rendered the task of teaching him decidedly agreeable. When Arthur was able to read all the letters of the alphabet readily and correctly, Mr. Whiffle grew elate; his sanguine temperament made him already look forward to the day when he should commence the Greek Testament with his pupil. Already he saw him grown into a promising young prig, carping at interpretations of the Sacrament, and dogmatising on the Holy Ghost. Unhappily, Mr. Whiffle’s anticipations were not destined to fulfilment.

When with his tutor, or in the company of any of the family, Arthur preserved a quiet, sad demeanour, doing his best to answer with a smile when spoken to, but at other times showing little, if any, interest in what went on around him. It was clear to every one that on the third day of his presence at the Rectory he was not a whit more at home than he had been on the first. Edward Norman took him occasionally for a short walk, spoke to him comfortingly and encouragingly, and did his best to win the boy’s confidence; but the rector was hardly of that nature which disposes itself readily to enter into the joys and the sorrows of children; when he spoke to Arthur it was as he would have spoken to a grown-up person. He was quite unable to understand the state of that young mind, darkened with ignorance and all the dreary memories of the past, or of the over-sensitive heart, wrung with unutterable grief at the loss of a father. Mrs. Cope was more successful in understanding his sorrows; once or twice a few kind, motherly words from her brought the hot tears rushing from the child’s eyes, and so gave him relief for the moment. But even she rapidly became aware that it was not an ordinary nature with which they had to deal, and foresaw that the process of reconciling him to his new life would be long and painful. To little Helen, Arthur was evidently a profound mystery. She would frequently take a book to a stool at a little distance from him, and then, under the pretence of reading, in reality sit watching him for a long time. On one such occasion Mr. Norman had withdrawn from the room, and the children were left alone together. Arthur was sitting on a low chair, his hands clasped over his knees, his head drooping down on his breast, and in the stillness of the room, only broken by the crackling of a bright fire, Helen could hear him sighing from time to time. After watching him for many minutes with a curiously reflective look, she suddenly rose and went to his side.

“Arthur,” she said, “why do you sit so?”

“I am thinking of my father,” replied Arthur, who was under less restraint with Helen than with the others.

“Was he a good father?” asked the little girl. “Was he like mine?”

“He was very good; but he wasn’t as rich as your father.”

“If he was good, Arthur,” resumed Helen, after a moment’s reflection, “why didn’t he teach you to read, like my father does me? You are older than I am, you know.”

“He used to tell me it was better to know nothing. He said I should be better off if I couldn’t read or write.”

Helen opened her eyes very wide.

“Then I’m sure he wasn’t good if he said that,” she pronounced decidedly. “My father tells me that a man is no good in the world if he can’t read and write, and I’m sure father knows.”

The boy had again sunk his head, and made no reply.

“And my father says,” pursued Helen, “that the more you know, the more good you are able to do to people. That’s why I’m learning as much as I can. I mean to do a great deal of good some day, Arthur; don’t you?”

“I don’t know how,” replied the boy, looking curiously up into Helen’s face.

“Oh, but I do! When I’m a little older I’m going to teach a school in Bloomford, and I shall only take those children that are poor and can’t afford to pay anything; father says I may. And when I’m old enough to have money of my own, I shall go and see the poor people in Bloomford — and there are a great many, you know — and I shall give them a shilling at a time — father says it isn’t wise to give too much — to buy what they want with. Don’t you think you’d like to do that, Arthur?”

“Perhaps so,” replied the boy.

“Arthur,” resumed Helen, “what are you going to be when you’re a man?”

“Don’t know.”

“I know what I should be.”

“What?”

“I should write books, books like those in father’s study. I don’t mean silly tale books, but books that would do people good. Father says there’s nothing like a good book, and I’m sure he’s right.”

She waited for a reply, but none came. It was evident that Arthur’s thoughts were far away; he did not seem to have heard her last sentence at all. With a little sigh of impatience she rose from her seat, shaking the golden ringlets from her face.

“Arthur!” she exclaimed, after looking round the room thoughtfully.

“What.”

“Do you like looking at pictures?”

“I — I think so,” he replied, with hesitation.

Helen took off a side table a large volume of engravings which it was all she could do to carry. Placing it on the floor in front of her companion she opened it gravely and invited Arthur to inspect it with her. Little by little the boy’s interest increased; he listened more attentively to Helen’s explanations, and began himself to make comments. Here at length was something attractive enough to hold his attention and liberate his mind from perpetual brooding over his sorrows. For nearly an hour the two were deeply engaged — Helen explaining at length in her precocious manner, here and there pointing a moral, and always referring to what her father had said with regard to any unusually knotty point; Arthur listening attentively, occasionally asking questions which displayed considerably more intelligence than would have been expected, and even at times laughing, though this very rarely. Whilst they were in the middle of the volume Mr. Norman opened the door. He was not observed, and, after gazing with some astonishment at the unusual sight, he withdrew quietly, without disturbing them.

But the relief proved only momentary. When next Helen desired to amuse her companion in the same manner, it soon appeared that the novelty had passed away; she could not succeed in arousing in him more than a languid interest. His desire of loneliness increased. Whenever an opportunity presented itself he would steal out of sight to that remote corner of the orchard, which he had discovered, and there would sit for hours, hidden from the windows at the back of the house by a thick holly-tree, insensible to the cold, which began to be severe, and even to rain and snow. Mr. Whiffle began to entertain less sanguine hopes with regard to his pupil. His progress by no means kept pace with the expectations which the first few days had excited. The boy seemed to dread the recurring lesson-hours, and at times was even stubborn when Mr. Whiffle essayed the influence of a little severity. It was very clear that Arthur Golding would never be taught by force.

“A frightful example, my dear sir,” exclaimed the curate to Mr. Norman, after a more than usually hopeless hour, “a frightful example of early years passed without the salutary influence of clerical admonition! I do not say positively that I renounce my hopes with regard to his future — but I fear, I fear.”

It was now drawing on to Christmas, and the approach of that season brought accession of life to the rather monotonous routine of the Rectory. A distant cousin of Mr. Norman, who had no blood relations living, had recently been married, and now, in accordance with an invitation, brought his wife to pass the Christmas at Bloomford. This young lady, who was of a remarkably mercurial disposition, soon succeeded in effecting what she styled a reformation in the domestic arrangements of her reverend cousin. She immediately interested herself in all the leading families of the neighbourhood, threw herself with enthusiasm into the multifarious schemes for Christmas festivities in connection with the Church, which hitherto had been left entirely to the care of Mr. Whiffle, subscribed for Christmas trees, gave her cooperation towards a Christmas bazaar, and made herself, in a very few days, a conspicuous feature in the frivolous life of Bloomford. The consequence was that the Rectory was invaded by a host of visitors. Mr. Norman shrugged his shoulders and began devoutly to wish that he had never invited the disturber of his dearly-loved quietude. But it could not be said that his cousin gave him any trouble beyond, indeed, taking possession of all the best rooms in his house. She installed herself as mistress, herself gave instructions with regard to the meals, herself invited whom she pleased to tea, paying no attention whatever to the civil hints of Mrs. Cope, who was nothing less than scandalised at this unwonted bouleversement of her time-honoured supremacy. All the young ladies of Bloomford seized upon the opportunity with joy. Once more did Mr. Norman become a subject of active interest, once more was his persistent bachelorhood cried shame upon by all eligible ladies, once more did the attacks upon his susceptibilities commence, and this time in his own house. The vote and interest of the mercurial cousin was solicited far and near, and she promised her best exertions on behalf of some dozen confidential old ladies who had daughters they were extremely desirous of getting off their hands. Mr. Norman was dragged perforce from the retirement of his study; he was made to take part personally in the ornamenting of the church with evergreens; he was beguiled by his lively cousin into visits to all sorts of people at all possible or impossible hours, and was always received with a degree of attention quite alarming, and which he could not in the least understand; he was made the recipient of more invitations than he could possibly respond to. Everybody was all at once dreadfully solicitous with regard to his health. Though no one knew his precise ailment it was obvious that he had drooped during the last few years, and how sad a thing it was for so delightful a man to sink into a premature grave unsoothed by the tender cares of wifely affection. Many old ladies adopted the motherly tone towards him, and told him plainly that he ought to marry. Edward Norman merely smiled, and gave his promise that he would think the matter over. And as often as he succeeded in shaking off the hounds and bestowing himself safely in the cool recesses of his study, he vowed internally that when once these visitors had taken their departure he would never again open his house to them or any one else.

The position of the children in the house during all this ferment was not a pleasant one. The bruyante cousin could not be expected to entertain any liking for such “troublesome little chits,” as she termed them, and, on the part of Helen at least, this distaste was cordially reciprocated.

The little lady was, to begin with, mortally jealous. What right had this stranger to come and monopolise the society of her father — her father, in whom her being was centred? Since the strangers had been in the house her regular lesson hours had been hopelessly disturbed. Instead of going to her father’s study and reading to him on a stool by his knee for certain hours during the day, as she had always been accustomed to do, she was now obliged to do her lessons with Mrs. Cope, and, after her father, Helen considered that to look up to Mrs. Cope as a teacher was decidedly infra dig. The way in which the little woman revenged herself was characteristic. Instead of reading from her book like a docile pupil, waiting for Mrs. Cope’s corrections and comments, and consulting her with regard to difficulties, she constituted herself the teacher, and made her book a kind of text, upon which she proceeded to discourse to the old lady in a highly improving manner, never failing to refer to “her father” as the ultimate source of appeal in any case where her dictum and that of Mrs. Cope found themselves at hopeless variance.

But this state of affairs, though occasionally flattering to Helen’s vanity, was, she felt, very far from satisfactory; and she not unfrequently delivered her sentiments anent the prolonged visit of the cousins in no unmistakable terms.

As for Arthur, the poor boy was depressed almost to illness. Mrs. Cope had discovered his seat in the orchard, and took every opportunity of disturbing him when he retired thither, fancying that he only required to be kept in the presence of the family to throw aside his mopish habits. The result was, that he found another place, in a field, still further away from the house, and often sat there beneath a hedge, on the damp ground, till he was all but insensible from cold and hunger.

On his return from such prolonged absences Mrs. Cope would sometimes scold him severely; but this had the effect of hardening his mind against her. Once when she had been unusually severe, he suddenly turned upon her with eyes that flashed with anger, his cheeks pale as death, and his little hands clenched together; and when she shrank back, quite frightened at his look, he burst into a violent fit of weeping, and threw himself passionately all his length upon the floor.

The same afternoon he asked a servant, who had often spoken kindly to him, the way to London; and she, without thinking much of his reasons for asking such a question, told him in reply the names of several villages through which the road lay. He said nothing, but walked away thoughtfully.

Mr. Whiffle had given him up as a bad job, though he still continued to give him his lessons pro forma. Once Arthur fairly played truant at lesson hour, and the rector sent him that evening to the curate’s house to ask pardon by way of penance. Mr. Whiffle improved the occasion.

“Did he not know by this time that obedience to pastors and masters was enjoined by the Catechism of the Church of England as by law established? Did he not know, moreover, that to play truant was, from a mere worldly point of view, a piece of gross disrespect towards the teacher, and that, in a case where that teacher was an ordained minister of the Church this disrespect amounted to irreligion? Had he no hankering after the sweets of a liberal education? Did it not cut him to the heart to visit the church on Sunday and, from absolute inability to read the Prayer-book, be obliged to keep staring about him to see when the congregation stood, when they sat, and when they knelt?” &c., &c., &c.

But all this wrought no impression upon the poor lad. In the depths of his heart was a firmly-rooted suffering which Mr. Whiffle was quite incapable of comprehending, and which Edward Norman divined, indeed, but knew not how to remedy.

Arthur felt away from home; Bloomford could never be anything to him but a foreign land. Throughout the whole of his young life he had never known but one true friend, and that friend his father. Despite all the miserable excesses by which he hastened his death — despite the fearful valley of suffering through which he had dragged his poor child, Golding had truly loved the boy, and Arthur had passionately reciprocated his affection. Though throughout the last two years of his life Golding had passed through all the stages of brutalisation which it is possible for such a nature as his, originally far from bad, to undergo, he had never once shown active cruelty to his child, had never once struck him, and had never used harsh language to him without the next moment bitterly repenting and doing his best to atone. True, he had half-starved the boy, had brought him up in foul haunts of poverty, wretchedness and crime, where it was a miracle his young nature retained anything of nobility, had utterly neglected to teach him, had even cynically said that he would get through his life better if he remained rude and untaught. Yet all this was the result of impaired faculties rather than of an ill-disposed heart.

More than half his days he had been mad with the poison of drink. Often and often he reproached himself with the fierce energy of a ruined soul for all the wrongs he was guilty of towards his offspring; many an oath he took to amend his vile life if only for the sake of Arthur; but when the hour of temptation came again he was as powerless to resist as the pebble dragged back into the depths of the ocean by the cliff-rending breaker.

And for all that the child loved him with all the strength of an intensely affectionate nature, clung to him as the sole object upon which to expend the riches of his overflowing heart, impossible to depict the agony which in a moment clouded his life when he knew that his father was dead. And ever since he had been at Bloomford this agony had gnawed at the springs of youthful energy and hope, had made his life, in the midst of these unsympathising strangers, a very torment to him. He had become possessed of an ever-growing, irrepressible desire to return to London.

He knew that he should no more find his father there, that he had not a friend to whom he could appeal for assistance; but still there was the dumb, strong desire to find himself once more in the scenes where he had lived with his father; he felt that he should then be more at home. He would visit his father’s grave; the people of the house he had lived in would tell him where that was. He felt, in his instinctive, unreflecting way, that it would be a happiness to fall down upon it and die, so unutterably wretched was he. The feeling actuating him was as the longing of a child for the mother’s breast, the ardent, soul-quelling desire of a lover to gain the side of an absent mistress; the yearning of the mariner on a desert island for the home he will never see again. As I have said, he did not reflect upon his longing; he would not then have been a child of eight years. It was instinct, and all the more invincible.

When the Rectory was full of visitors he shrank into his bedroom, and there remained in cold and darkness till Mrs. Cope came to search for him and send him to bed. Yet, even in these depths of misery there were chords in his nature which could be touched, and excite a momentary diversion from his brooding over the past. One night there was a lady visiting at the house who played skilfully on the piano. As Arthur sat in his dark hiding-place, the drawing-room door happened to be opened whilst this lady was playing. The sweet notes fell upon his ear with an effect that nothing else could have produced. A fine spark of heavenly fire, which lay beneath all the rude externals of his being, throbbed momentarily into brighter life at the voice of the keys. The next moment the door was shut again, and the music became indistinguishable. But he could not resist the impulse to hear more. Stealing out of the bedroom, he crept down stairs or tip-toe. The hall was vacant. He approached the drawing-room door and stood with his ear against it, drinking in the melody in brief forgetfulness of his troubles. In a few moments he fancied he heard a step descending the upper stairs. Dreading to be found here, he rushed to the house-door, and out into the night. The ground was frozen hard, and light snow was just beginning to fall. Guided still by his ear, he made his way over some barren flower-beds to beneath the drawing-room windows. The night was so perfectly still that he heard the music here almost as well as within the house. Crouching on the fresh-fallen snow, he listened, all unconscious of the cold, till the music ceased.

Perhaps it might commence again. In hope of this he waited, waited till the snow had. quite covered him with white flakes; till his teeth chattered and his hands and feet were numb. Then he reentered the house and crept silently upstairs.

He had opened the bedroom door before he observed that there was a light within, and on entering he found himself face to face with Mrs. Cope. The good lady was horrified; she scolded severely, she even threatened corporal punishment. Arthur said not a word, but allowed himself to be hurried into bed. Then, when Mrs. Cope had gone and he was alone in the dark, he burst into passionate weeping, and so at length sobbed himself to sleep.

Early on the following morning, just after the servants had risen and had opened the door, a little, shivering form crept silently down stairs, paused a moment in the hall to see that no one was about, then ran quickly into the garden. Thence it passed into a field, and, crossing this, entered the high road.

It was Arthur. Possibly he had come out for a walk before breakfast; his constant desire of solitude would account for his stealing from the house so quietly. But why had he forgotten to put on his little overcoat? It had ceased snowing some time during the night, and frost had since made the surface hard; but the sky looked leaden and lowering in the early daylight; it would snow again ere long. The cold was piercing, and the wind, which ever and again swept the fields, froze everything that it touched. Surely it was a strange morning to take an early walk, without an overcoat too.

A country fellow happened to be coming along the road just as Arthur emerged into it. The boy stopped him and inquired his way to a certain village distant about two miles. Having received the direction he set off running. Had he been given a commission from the rector that he showed such eagerness to reach the place? Mr. Norman had occasionally sent him on little errands in the hope of affording him distraction. But this was too great a distance, and before breakfast.

In something more than an hour he reached the village, and, choosing a retired spot, sat down to rest for a few moments. He was very tired, and, despite the severity of the morning, the perspiration stood on his forehead, he had run so quickly.

In a short time he rose again, and again inquired of a passer-by the way to another village, still farther off. The man looked at his questioner in some surprise, but gave him the desired information. Once away from the houses the boy began again to run, looking from time to time behind him, as if afraid of pursuers. For nearly three hours he toiled along, wearied at length beyond running, and indeed scarcely able to walk. He began to feel very hungry, too. Why did he not turn back towards Bloomford, where food and shelter and friendly faces awaited him? He seemed to have no such thought.

Before one or two cottages, which he passed, he made a pause. His hunger had grown so severe that he was on the point of knocking at the door and begging for a little food, but each time his courage failed him, and he passed on. He felt dreadfully thirsty, too, and, to relieve himself, broke off lumps of hard snow from the ground, and let them melt in his mouth. So great was his weariness now that he could scarcely trail his limbs along. He was, be it remembered, only eight years old, and weak besides, and he must have travelled nearly eight miles. Again and again he sat down to rest, now on the snow-covered bank at the roadside, now on a stile which led off the road into fields, and each time he rose it was with a feeling that he could go no further. He did not give way to despair and cry; but his eyes were bloodshot from the cutting wind, his cheeks were pale and haggard-looking, his limbs trembled with cold and fatigue. For he was no longer able to walk quick enough to keep himself warm. He felt as though sensation was quitting all his limbs.

The noon was past, and not a ray of sunshine had yet illumined the dreary tracts of snow-clad country. Neither had it as yet snowed; but now every moment the welkin grew more leaden, and the wind whistled along the scraggy hedgerows with an ominous note. At length a few white specks began to appear against the gathering gloom of the sky, then Arthur felt something blow velvety soft against his face, and before long it began to snow in earnest. No house was now within sight, and as he felt his feet sink and clog in the fast deepening drifts, the piercing wind seemed to the child to freeze his very heart; cold despair had bound the very source of tears, but, though he could not cry, for a moment he wished that he were back at the Rectory. Unable to toil a yard further he staggered to. the road-side, and sunk down to rest.

He felt sleepy; not even the falling snow was able to keep him awake; and he knew that by degrees he fell into a reclining posture. He did not do so purposely, it seemed that he could not help it. And he felt far from uncomfortable. The sensation of deadening cold had departed, and a pleasant warmth wrapped his limbs. In a few moments he seemed to dream. A dark object bent over him, and raised his cap from his face, and then it seemed as if he were raised to a great height by a force which he could not resist; but still his sensation of comfort was not disturbed. Then he seemed to be moving through the air, still over-shadowed by the dark object. Then, for a time, he ceased to dream, and dark weariness bound all his senses. But this passed as the dream renewed itself. Again the delightful enjoyment of warmth, but this time there seemed to be light as well, and a low sound, as of voices, grew upon his ear. The light grew more intense; he once more felt the ability to stir,. and, rousing himself with an effort, found that it had not been all a dream. He was sitting in a large easy-chair, before him cracked and blazed an immense fire, and around him stood a group of people. One, an elderly woman, was chafing his hands, and behind her stood a man with a glass of something in his hand that steamed and smelt deliciously. The rest were children, staring at him in silence.

The woman spoke to him in a kindly voice, asking if he felt better, and, on his replying in the affirmative, began to question him as to the reason of his wandering alone on such a stormy evening. It appeared. that her husband, coming home along the high road, had seen Arthur half asleep, half fainting, in the snow, had picked him up in his arms, and carried him to his house, which was not a quarter of a mile off.

In answer to their inquiries Arthur had but one reply: He was going to London. Had he friends in London? He said, yes. He made no attempt to explain his journey, maintaining stolid silence in answer to all other questions regarding it. And how did he intend getting to London? He didn’t know; he was going to walk; but just now he felt so hungry.

They set some food before him, and by degrees he satisfied his hunger. Then, when he had eaten and drunk enough, the woman, after a brief discussion apart with her husband, bade him follow her upstairs. Here he was helped to take his clothes off, and was put to bed.

He slept all night without a dream. When he awoke there were two children dressing in the room by the dim light which came through the small casement. Arthur could see that it was still snowing. Without speaking a word he jumped out of bed and commenced putting on his clothes, the other children all the time eyeing him curiously.

He descended the stairs, and found the husband and wife seated at breakfast before a large fire. The room was a large kitchen, the floor beautifully clean, the walls garnished with pewter and crockery, everything betokening order and comfort.

“Eh! Here’s this poor child up already!” exclaimed the woman in surprise. “How do you feel this morning?”

Arthur replied that he felt hungry.

“Why, that’s right!” exclaimed the man, in a hearty tone, laughing as he spoke. “There ain’t so much amiss with a lad when he says he’s hungry. Come and warm yourself, boy.”

Arthur complied gladly, and in a few minutes was partaking of a hearty breakfast. When he had finished, the woman looked curiously at him for some minutes, and then said —

“And so you want to get to London, do you? You’re a young un to be travelling about by yourself in weather like this, and I can’t quite make you out. But if you’ve got friends in London and nowhere else, why to London you must go, that’s the long and short of it. Do you know how far it is, lad?”

Arthur shook his head.

“Well, hard upon forty miles. Do you think you can walk that today?”

“I can try,” replied the boy, simply.

The man and woman burst out laughing.

“Well, I can’t make it out at all,” said the former, once more. “But I hope there’s nothing wrong. Now look — I’m going to take you up to the railway station here, and get you a ticket for London. If you once get there, do you think you can find your friends?”

The boy replied that he was sure he could.

“Very good. Then as soon as you’re ready we’ll be off, for I haven’t much time to spare.”

In the meantime the woman had cut several mightily substantial sandwiches, which she now wrapped in a piece of paper and put into Arthur’s hand, bidding him eat them during the journey. The man having encased himself in a huge overcoat, then took Arthur by the hand and led him out of the house. The boy had already been provided by the kindly dame with a thick muffler which belonged to one of her own children, and thus he suffered less when he met the morning wind. The woman and children stood at the door watching him till he had turned a corner and was out of sight.

The man was as good as his word. He purchased a third-class ticket, which he bade Arthur be careful not to lose; and, having seen him safely seated in the train, which steamed into the station thickly draped with snow, he gave him a few coppers and hearty wishes, and waved his hand to him as the train moved quickly away. Truly he had been a good Samaritan.

In a couple of hours Arthur once more stood in London — confused by the rapid events of the morning, hustled by the thick crowd upon the platform, not knowing where to turn or what to do. He made his way into the open street. Here it was not snowing, but evidently had been a very short time ago, and the pavement was thick with slush. The child’s heart sank within him as he stood close up to the wall to be out of the way of the hurrying crowds, grasping in one hand the remnant of his sandwiches, in the other the few coppers that he had received as a parting gift from his kindly host. Whither should he now turn his steps?

The hesitation and the fear were only for a few moments. After all, he was in London, in the midst of all the rush and roar with which he was so familiar, which had gone on around him ever since he could recollect. Compared with the monotonous quiet of Bloomford this was indeed home, and as the words rose to his lips a flush of hope warmed his veins; he began to walk quickly along the sloppy streets.

Once or twice he inquired his way — the way to Whitecross Street; for it was to the house where he had last of all lived that he bent his steps — to the house and the room where he had seen his father last. Of friends to whom he could go and beg shelter he had literally none. The landlady of his latest abode was his only acquaintance.

About noon he reached Whitecross Street. Very foul did its hideous face peep forth from the covering of slush and grime and all unutterable abominations; but to Arthur it meant home, and he hailed its appearance. He reached the entrance of the court, he ran quickly to the house-door. There stood the landlady, in her hands a jug of beer, which she had just fetched for her dinner. She opened her eyes in astonishment.

“Eh, I’m damn’d if that ’ere kid ain’t come back again! S’elp me God!”

“How do you do, Mrs. Blatherwick?” said Arthur, smiling.

“How do I do, young un? Why, what are you a doin’ ’ere, I’d like to know?”

Arthur scarcely knew what to say. The coarse, unfriendly tone of the woman had checked the words he was about to utter, and he stood looking down in silence.

“Is our old room let yet, Mrs. Blatherwick?” he at length plucked up courage to ask.

“And what d’yer want to know for, eh?” replied the woman.

“Because, if it isn’t,” stammered the boy, “I wish you’d let me sleep there to-night. I haven’t anywhere else to go to.”

“Ain’t got nowhere else to go to?” echoed Mrs. Blatherwick in surprise. “Why, I thought as you’d gone to live with the parson?”

“I — I’ve left him,” said Arthur, timidly.

“Oh, you’ve left him, ‘ev yer? Then yer may jist go an’ get a lodgin’ of them as’ll give it yer.”

She was on the point of turning away into the house when a sudden thought appeared to strike her, and she stopped.

“How much money have yer got in yer pockets, eh?” she asked, her vicious-looking eyes sparkling the while.

“I’ve got fourpence,” replied Arthur, showing the coppers. “Will you let me have a night’s lodging for fourpence, Mrs. Blatherwick?”

The landlady reflected a moment, and the result seemed favourable.

“Come in with yer,” she said. “Yer don’t expect to ‘ave no dinner, do yer?”

“I’ve got all I want,” replied Arthur, showing his sandwiches.

“Come along, then,” snarled the woman. “Don’t keep me standin’ ’ere all day.”

And she preceded him into the house, taking a draught out of the jug as she went.