Mrs. Worboise murmured something not quite audible about "I and the children whom God hath given me."

"At the expense of the children he hasn't given you!" said Mr. Worboise, at a venture; and chuckled now, for he saw his victory in her face.

But Mr. Worboise's chuckle always made Mrs. Worboise shut up, and not another word could he get out of her that evening. She never took refuge in her illness, but in an absolute dogged silence, in which she persuaded herself that she was suffering for the truth's sake.

Her husband's communication made her still more anxious about Thomas, and certain suspicions she had begun to entertain about the German master became more decided. In her last interview with Mr. Simon she had hinted to him that Thomas ought to be watched, that they might know whether he really went to his German lesson or went somewhere else. But Mr. Simon was too much of a gentleman not to recoil from the idea, and Mrs. Worboise did not venture to

press it. When she saw him again, however, she suggested I think I had better give the substance of the conversation, for it would not in itself be interesting to my readers-she suggested her fears that his German master had been mingling German theology with his lessons, and so corrupting the soundness of his faith. This seemed to Mr. Simon very possible indeed, for he knew how insidious the teachers of such doctrines are, and, glad to do something definite for his suffering friend, he offered to call upon the man, and see what sort of person he was. This offer Mrs. Worboise gladly accepted, without thinking that of all men to find out any insidious person, Mr. Simon, in his simplicity, was the least likely.

But now the difficulty arose that they knew neither his name nor where he lived, and they could not ask Thomas about him. So Mr. Simon undertook the task of finding the man by inquiry in the neighbourhood of Bagot Street.

"My friend," he said, stepping the next morning into Mr. Kitely's shop, he had a way of

calling everybody his friend, thinking so to recommend the Gospel.

"At your service, sir," returned Mr. Kitely, brusquely, as he stepped from behind one of the partitions in the shop, and saw the little clerical apparition which had not even waited to see the form of the human being ere he applied to him the sacred epithet.

"I only wanted to ask you," drawled Mr. Simon, in a drawl both of earnestness and unconscious affectation, "whether you happen to know of a German master somewhere in this neighbourhood."

"Well, I don't know," returned Mr. Kitely, in a tone that indicated a balancing rather than pondering operation of the mind. For although he was far enough from being a Scotchman, he always liked to know why one asked a question before he cared to answer it. "I don't know as

I could recommend one over another."

"I am not in want of a master.

I only wish to find out one that lives in this neighbourhood."

VOL. I.

N

"I know at least six of them within a radius of one half-mile, taking my shop here for the centre of the circle," said Mr. Kitely, consequentially. "What's the man's name you want,

sir ?"

"That is what I cannot tell you."

"Then how am I to tell you, sir?"

"If you will oblige me with the names and addresses of those six you mention, one of them. will very likely be the man I want."

"I daresay the clergyman wants Mr. Moloch, father," said a voice from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the floor-" the foreign gentleman that Mr. Worboise goes to see up the court." "That's the very man, my child," responded Mr. Simon. "Thank you very much. Where shall I find him?"

"I'll show you," returned Mattie.

"Why couldn't he have said so before?" remarked Mr. Kitely to himself, with indignation. "But it's just like them."

By them he meant clergymen in general.

"What a fearful name-Moloch!" reflected

Mr. Simon, as he followed Mattie up the court. He would have judged it a name of bad omen had he not thought omen rather a wicked word. The fact was, the German's name was Molken, a very innocent one, far too innocent for its owner, for it means only whey.

Herr Molken was a ne'er-do-weel student of Heidelburg—a clever fellow, if not a scholar, whose bad habits came to be too well known at home for his being able to indulge them there any longer, and who had taken refuge in London from certain disagreeable consequences which not unfrequently follow aberrant efforts to procure the means of gambling and general dissipation. Thomas had as yet spent so little time in his company, never giving more than a quarter of an hour or so to his lesson, that Molken had had no opportunity of influencing him in any way. But he was one of those who, the moment they make a new acquaintance, begin examining him for the sake of discovering his weak points, that they may get some hold of him. He measured his own strength or weakness by the number of