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good, it may be for evil-but a story. Thomas's religion was no sign of this yet; for a man can no more be saved by the mere reflex of parental influences, than he will be condemned by his inheritance of parental sins. I do not say that there is no interest in the emotions of such young people; but I say there is not reality enough in them to do anything with. They are neither consistent nor persistent enough to be wrought into form. Such are in the condition over which in the miracle-play Adam laments to Eve after their expulsion from Paradise

"Oure hap was hard, oure wytt was nesche (soft, tender) To paradys whan we were brought."

Mr. Boxall lived in an old-fashioned house in Hackney, with great rooms and a large garden. Through the latter he went with Mr. Worboise and Tom to let them out at a door in the wall, which would save them a few hundred yards in going to the North London Railway. There were some old trees in the garden, and much shrubbery. As he returned he heard a rustle

amongst the lilacs that crowded about a side walk, and thought he saw the shimmer of a white dress. When he entered the drawingroom, his daughter Jane entered from the opposite door. He glanced round the room: Mr. Wither was gone. This made Mr. Boxall suspicious and restless; for, as I have said, he had not confidence in Mr. Wither. Though punctual and attentive to business, he was convinced that he was inclined to be a fast man; and he strongly suspected him of being concerned in betting transactions of different sorts, which are an abomination to the man of true business associations and habits.

Mr. Worboise left the house in comfortable spirits, for Providence had been propitious to him for some months past, and it mattered nothing to him whither or how the wind blew. But it blew from the damp west, cold and grateful upon Thomas's brow. For the immediate influence of the wine he had drunk had gone off, and its effects remained in discomfort and doubt. Had he got himself into a scrape with Mary

Boxall ?-He had said nothing to her.

He had

And the

not committed himself to anything. wind blew cooler and more refreshing upon his forehead. And then came a glow of pleasure as he recalled her blush, and the glance she had so timidly lifted towards his lordly face. That was something to be proud of! Certainly

he was one whom women-I suppose he said girls to himself-were ready to-yes-to fall in love with. Proud position! Enviable destiny! Before he reached home the wind had blown away every atom of remorse with the sickly fumes of the wine; and although he resolved to be careful how he behaved to Mary Boxall in future, he hugged his own handsome idea in the thought that she felt his presence, and was-just a little-not dangerously-but really a little in love with him.

CHAPTER V.

Guild Court.

HE office was closed, the shutters were up in the old-fashioned way on the outside,

the lights extinguished, and Mr. Stopper, who was always the last to leave, was gone. The narrow street looked very dreary, for most of its windows were similarly covered. The shutters, the pavements, the kennels, everything shone and darkened by fits. For it was a blowing night, with intermittent showers, and everything being wet, reflected the gaslights in turn, for the wind teased them into all angles of relation with neighbouring objects, tossing them about like flowers ready at any moment to be blown from their stems. Great masses of gray went sweeping over the narrow section of the sky that could be seen from the pavement. Now and then

the moon gleamed out for one moment and no more, swallowed the next by a mile of floating rain, dusky and shapeless. Fighting now with a fierce gust, and now limping along in comparative quiet, with a cotton umbrella for a staff, an old woman passed the office, glanced up at the shuttered windows, and, after walking a short distance, turned into a paved archway, and then going along a narrow passage reached a small paved square, called Guild Court. Here she took from her pocket a latch-key, and opening a door much in want of paint, but otherwise in good condition, entered, and ascended a broad dusky staircase, with great landings, whence each ascent rose at right angles to the preceding. The dim light of the tallow-candle, which she had left in a corner of the staircase as she descended, and now took up with her again, was sufficient to show that the balusters were turned and carved, and the handrail on the top of them broad and channeled. When she reached the first floor, she went along a passage, and at the end of it opened a door. A cheerful fire burned

VOL. I.

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