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"No. A man who will not take the consequences of loving cannot be much of a lover."

"Lucy!" cried Thomas, now stung to the heart. "I can't help it, Thomas," said Lucy, bursting into tears; "I must speak the truth, and if you cannot bear it, the worse for me-and for you, too, Thomas." "Then you mean to give me up?" said Thomas, pathetically, without, however, any real fear of such an unthinkable catastrophe.

"If it be giving you up to say I will not marry a man who is too much afraid of his father and mother to let them know what he is about, then I do give you up. But it will be you who give me up if you refuse to acknowledge me as you ought."

Lacy could not have talked like this ever before in her life. She had gone through an eternity of suffering in the night. She was a woman now. She had been but a girl before. Now she stood high above Thomas. He was but a boy still, and not beautiful as such. She was all at once old enough to be his mother. There was no escape from the course she took; no dodging was possible. This must be. But she was and would be gentle with poor Thomas.

"You do not love me, Lucy," he cried.

"My poor Thomas, I do love you; love you so dearly that I trust and pray you may be worthy of my love. Go and do as you ought, and come back to me-like one of the old knights you talk about," she added, with the glimmer of a hopeful smile, "bringing victory to his lady."

"I will, I will," said Thomas, overcome by her solemn beauty and dignified words. It was as if she had cast the husk of the girl, and had come out a saving angel. But the perception of this was little more to him yet than a poetic sense of painful pleasure. "I will, I will," he said. "But I cannot to-night, for my father and mother are both at Folkestone. But I will write to them-that will be best."

"Up stairs, uncle, I believe."

"Is she aware of that fellow's presence?"

"You are not very polite, uncle," said Lucy, with dignity. "This is my friend, Mr. Worboise, whom I believe you know. Of course I do not receive visitors without my grandmother's knowledge."

Mr. Boxall choked an oath in his throat, or rather the oath nearly choked him. He turned and went down the stair again; but neither of them heard the outer door close. Thomas and Lucy stared at each other in dismay.

The facts of the case were these, as near as I can guess. The Ningpo had dropped down to Gravesend, and the Boxalls had joined her there. But some delay had arisen, and she was not to sail till the next morning. Mr. Boxall had resolved to make use of the time thus gained or lost, and had come up to town. I cannot help believing that it was by contrivance of Mr. Stopper, who had watched Tom and seen him go up the court, that he went through the door from his private room, instead of going round, which would have given warning to the lovers. Possibly he returned intending to see his mother; but after the discovery he made, avoided her partly because he was angry and would not quarrel with her the last thing before his voyage. Upon maturer consideration, he must have seen that he had no ground for quarrelling with her at all, for she could have known nothing about Tom in relation to Mary, except Tom had told her, which was not at all likely. But before he had had time to see this, he was on his way to Gravesend again. He was so touchy as well as obstinate about everything wherein his family was concerned, that the sight of Tom with his Mary's cousin was enough to drive all reflection out of him for an hour at least.

Thomas and Lucy stood and stared at each other. Thomas stared from consternation; Lucy only stared

"Any way you like, Thomas. I don't care how at Tom. you do it, so it is done."

All this time the old lady, having seen that something was wrong, had discreetly kept out of the way, for she knew that the quarrels of lovers at least are most easily settled between themselves. Thomas now considered it all over and done with, and Lucy, overjoyed at her victory, leaned into his arms, and let him kiss her ten times. Such a man, she ought not, perhaps-only she did not know better-to have allowed to touch her till he had done what he had promised. To some people the promise is the difficult part, to others the performance. To Thomas, unhappily, the promising was easy.

They did not hear the door open. It was now getting dark, but the two were full in the light of the window, and visible enough to the person who entered. He stood still for one moment, during which the lovers unwound their arms. Only when parting, they became aware that a man was in the room. He came forward with hasty step. It was Richard Boxall. Thomas looked about for his hat. Lucy stood firm and quiet, waiting.

"Lucy, where is your grandmother?"

"Well, Thomas," she said at last, with a sweet watery smile; for she had her lover, and she had lost her idol. She had got behind the scenes, and could worship no more; but Dagon was a fine idea, notwithstanding his fall, and if she could not set him up on his pedestal again, she would at least try to give him an arm-chair. Fish-tailed Dagon is an unfortunate choice for the simile, I know, critical reader; but let it pass, and, the idea it illustrates being by no means original, let the figure at least have some claim to the distinction.

"Now he'll go and tell my father," said Tom; "and I wish you knew what a row my mother and' he will make between them."

"But why, Tom? Have they any prejudice against me? Do they know there is such a person?” "I don't know. They may have heard of you at your uncle's."

"Then why should they be so very angry ?" "My father because you have no money, and my mother because you have no grace."

"No grace, Tom! Am I so very clumsy ?" Thomas burst out laughing.

GUILD COURT.

"I forgot," he said. "You were not brought up to
my mother's slang. She and her set use Bible words
till they make you hate them."

"But you shouldn't hate them. They are good in
themselves, though they be wrong used."
"That's all very well. Only if you had been tried
with them as I have been, I am afraid you would have
had to give in to hating them, as well as me, Lucy.
I never did like that kind of slang. But what am I
to do with old Boxall-I beg your pardon-with
your uncle Richard? He'll be sure to write to my
father before he sails. They're friends, you know."
"Well, but you will be beforehand with him, and
then it won't matter. You were going to do it at any
rate, and the thing now is to have the start of him,"
said Lucy, perhaps not sorry to have in the occurrence
an additional spur to prick the sides of Thomas's
intent.

"Yes, yes, that's all very well," returned Thomas,
dubiously, as if there was a whole world behind it.
"Now, dear Tom, do go home at once, and write.
You will save the last post if you do," said Lucy
decidedly; for she saw more and more the necessity,
for Thomas's own sake, of urging him to action.

"So, instead of giving me a happy evening, you
are going to send me home to an empty house!"
"You see the thing must be done, or my uncle will
be before you," said Lucy, beginning to be vexed
with him for his utter want of decision, and with her-
self for pushing him towards such an act. Indeed,
she felt all at once that perhaps she had been un-
maidenly. But there was no choice except to do it,
or break off the engagement.

Now whether it was that her irritation influenced her tone and infected Tom with like irritation, or that he could not bear being thus driven to do what he so much disliked, while on the whole he would have preferred that Mr. Boxall should tell his father and so save him from the immediate difficulty, the evil spirit in him arose once more in rebellion, and, like the mule that he was, he made an effort to unseat the gentle power that would have urged him along the only safe path on the mountain-side.

If

"Lucy, I will not be badgered in this way. you can't trust me, you won't get anything that way." Lucy drew back a step and looked at him for one moment; then turned and left the room. waited for a minute; then, choosing to arouse a great Thomas sense of injury in his bosom, took his hat, and went out, banging the door behind him.

Just as he banged Lucy's door, out came Mr. Molken from his. It was as if the devil had told a hawk to wait, and he would fetch him a pigeon.

"Coming to have your lesson after all ?" he asked, as Thomas, from very indecision, made a step or two towards him.

"No; I don't feel inclined for a lesson to-night.” "Where are you going, then?"

[Good Words, May 1, 1867.

"But where are you going?" "You'll see that when we get there. You're not afraid, are you?"

"Not I," answered Tom; "only a fellow likes to know where he's going. That's all."

fellow like you really ought to know something of
"Well, where would you like to go? A young
the world he lives in. You are clever enough, in all
conscience, if you only knew a little more."

where I go. Only," Tom added, "I have no money
"Go on, then. I don't care. It's nothing to me
of Goethe's pooms."
in my pocket. I spent my last shilling on this

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hearsay! He would know all the ways of life for him"Ah, you never spent your money better! There was a man, now, that never contented himself with self-else how was he to judge of them all? He would it. Why should a man be ignorant of anything that taste of everything, that he might know the taste of you. See if I don't!" can be known? Come along. I will take care of

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nothing. And I tell you I haven't got a farthing
"But you can't be going anywhere in London for
my purse."

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"Never mind that. It shan't cost you anything.-
English call it; though why there should be any
Now I am going to make a clean breast of it, as you
thing dirty in keeping your own secrets I don't know.
I want to make an experiment with you."

reviving as his quarrel with Lucy withdrew a little
into the background.
"Give me chloroform, and cut me up?" said Tom,

form, nor have your eyes bandaged, nor be tied to the
table. You can go the moment you have had enough
"Not quite that. You shall neither take chloro-
tirely an experiment."
of it. It is merely for the sake of my theory. En-

judge of the nature of the experiment."
"Perhaps, if you told me your theory, I might

Why, I knew one-not a gambler, I don't mean that
"I told you all about it the other day. You are
one of those fortunate mortals doomed to be lucky.
with him where any chance was concerned.
-whose friends at last would have nothing to do
was only sixpenny points, they wouldn't play a single
If it
rubber of whist with him except he was their partner.
with strangers-comparative strangers, I mean, of
In fact, the poor wretch was reduced to play only
course. He won everything."

the thing. "Then what do you want with me? Out with it." "I only want to back you. You don't understand his pocket as he went on, and it never occurred to You shan't spend a farthing. Tom to ask how he had them, seeing he was so hardplenty."-Here Molken pulled a few sovereigns from I have up at dinner-time.-"It's all for my theory of luck, I assure you. I have given up practical gambling, as I told you, long ago. It's not right. I have known

"Oh, I don't know," answered Tom, trying to enough about it, I confess to you-you know we únlook no-how in particular.

"Come along with me, then. I'll show you something of life after dark."

derstand each other; but I confess too-my theory
-I am anxious about that."

All this time they had been walking along, Thomas

Good Words, May 1, 1867.J

paying no heed to the way they went. He would have known little about it, however, well as he thought he knew London, for they had entered a region entirely unknown to him.

Lucy made no reply, but turned her face towards the wall, as mourners did ages before the birth of King Hezekiah. Grannie had learned a little wisdom in her long life, and left her. She would get a cup of

"But you haven't told me, after all," he said, tea ready, for she had great faith in bodily cures for

"where you are going."

mental aches. But before the tea was well in the tea

"Here," answered Molken, pushing open the swing-pot Lucy came down in her bonnet and shawl.

door of a publichouse.

The next morning Thomas made his appearance in the office at the usual hour, but his face was pale and his eyes were red. His shirt-front was tumbled and dirty, and he had nearly forty shillings in his pocket. He never looked up from his work, and now and then pressed his hand to his head. This Mr. Stopper saw and enjoyed.

CHAPTER XX.-HOW LUCY SPENT THE NIGHT.

WHEN Lucy left the room, with her lover-if lover he could be called-alone in it, her throat felt as if it would burst with the swelling of something like bodily grief. She did not know what it was, for she had never felt anything like it before. She thought she was going to die. Her grandmother could have told her that she would be a happy woman if she did not have such a swelling in her throat a good many times without dying of it: but Lucy strove desperately to hide it from her. She went to her own room and threw herself on her bed, but started up again when she heard the door bang, flew to the window, and saw all that passed between Molken and Thomas till they left the court together. She had never seen Molken so full in the face before; and whether it was from this full view, or that his face wore more of the spider expression upon this occasion I do not know-I incline to the latter, for I think that an on-looker can read the expression of two countenances better, sometimes, than those engaged in conversation can read each other's-however it was, she felt a dreadful repugnance to Molken from that moment, and became certain that he was trying in some way or other to make his own out of Thomas. With this new distress was mingled the kind, but mistaken self-reproach that she had driven him to it. Why should she not have borne with the poor boy, who was worried to death between his father and mother and Mr. Stopper and that demon down there? He would be all right if they would only leave him alone. He was but a poor boy, and, alas! she had driven him away from his only friend-for such she was sure she was. She threw herself on her bed, but she could not rest. All the things in the room seemed pressing upon her, as if they had staring eyes in their heads; and there was no heart anywhere.

She could not rest. She tossed and turned. What could Thomas be about with that man? What mischief might he not take him into? Good women, in their supposed ignorance of men's wickedness, are not unfrequently like the angels, in that they understand it perfectly, without the knowledge soiling one feather of their wings. They see it clearly-even from afar. Now, although Lucy could not know so much of it as many are compelled to know, she had some acquaintance with the lowest castes of humanity, and the vice of the highest is much the same as the vice of the lowest, only in general worse-more refined, and more detestable. So, by a natural process, without knowing how, she understood something of the kind of gulf into which a man like Molken might lead Thomas, and she could not bear the thoughts that sprung out of this understanding. Hardly knowing what she did, she got up and put on her bonnet and shawl, and went down stairs.

"Where on earth are you going, Lucy?" asked her grandmother, in some alarm.

Lucy did not know in the least what she meant to do. She had had a vague notion of setting out to find Thomas somewhere, and rescue him from the grasp of Moloch, but, save for the restlessness with which her misery filled her, she could never have entertained the fancy. The moment her grandmother asked her the question, she saw how absurd it would be.

Still she could not rest. So she invented an answer, and ordered her way according to her word. "I'm going to see little Mattie," she said. "The child is lonely, and so am I. I will take her out for a walk."

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Lucy drank her cup of tea, then rose, and went to the bookshop. Mr. Kitely was there alone. "How's Mattie to-night, Mr. Kitely? Is she any better, do you think?" she asked.

"She's in the back room there. I'll call her," said the bookseller, without answering either of Lucy's questions.

"Oh! I'll just go in to her. You wouldn't mind me taking her out for a little walk, would you?" "Much obliged to you, miss," returned the bookseller, heartily. "It's not much amusement the poor

Her grandmother heard the door bang, and came in child has. I'm always meaning to do better for her, search of her.

"What's the matter, my pet?" she asked, as she entered the room and found her lying on her bed. "Oh, nothing, grannie," answered Lucy, hardly knowing what she said.

"You've quarrelled with that shilly-shally beau of yours, I suppose. Well, let him go-he's not much."

but I'm so tied with the shop that-I don't know hardly how it is, but somehow we go on the old way. She'll be delighted."

Lucy went into the back parlour, and there sat Mattie, with her legs curled up beneath her on the window-sill, reading a little book, thumbed and worn at the edges, and brown with dust and use.

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Wise Mattie glanced up in her face. She had recog- passage upward open. She closed the little book nized the sadness in her tone.

"Read this first, please, Miss Burton," she said. "I think it will do you good. Things will go wrong. I'm sure it's very sad. And I don't know what's to be done with the world. It's always going wrong. It's just like father's watch. He's always saying there's something out of order in its inside, and he's always a-taking of it to the doctor, as he calls the watchmaker to amuse me. Only I'm not very easy to amuse," reflected Mattie, with a sigh. But," she resumed, “I wish I knew the doctor to set the world right. The clock o' St. Jacob's goes all right, but I'm sure Mr. Potter ain't the doctor to set the world right, any more than Mr. Derry is for Mr. Kitely's watch." The associations in Mattie's mind were not always very clear either to herself or other people: they were generally just notwithstanding.

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gently, laid it down, got Mattie's bonnet, and heedless
of the remarks of the child upon the poem, put it on
her, and led her out. Her heart was too full to
speak. As they went through the shop—
"A pleasant walk to you, ladies," said the book-
seller.

*

"Thank you, Mr. Kitely," returned his daughter, for Lucy could not yet speak.

They had left Bagot Street, and were in one of the principal thoroughfares, before Lucy had got the lump in her throat sufficiently swallowed to be able to speak. She had not yet begun to consider, where they should go. When they came out into the wider street, the sun, now near the going down, was shining golden through a rosy fog. Long shadows lay or flitted about over the level street. Lucy had never before taken any notice of the long shadows of evening. Although she was a town-girl, and had therefore had comparatively few chances, yet in such wide streets as she had sometimes to traverse they were not a rare sight. In the city, to be sure, they are much rarer. But the reason she' saw them now was that her sorrowful heart saw the sorrowfulness of the long shadows out of the rosy mist, and made her mind observe them. The sight brought the tears again into her eyes, and yet soothed her. They looked so strange upon that wood-paved street, that they seemed to have wandered from some heathy moor and lost themselves in the labyrinth of the city. Even more than the scent of the hay in the early

Lucy took the book, and read. The verses were morning, floating into the silent streets from the fiel as follow:

As Christ went into Jericho-town,

"Twas darkness all, from toe to crown,

About blind Bartimeus.

He said, Our eyes are more than dim,
And so, of course, we don't see Him,

But David's Son can see us.

Cry out, cry out, blind brother, cry;
Let not salvation dear go by;

Have mercy, Son of David.

Though they were blind, they both could hear
They heard, and cried, and he drew near;
And so the blind were saved.

O Jesus Christ, I'm deaf and blind,
Nothing comes through into my mind,

I only am not dumb.

Although I see thee not, nor hear,

I cry because thou may'st be near:
O Son of David, come.

A finger comes into my ear;

A voice comes through the deafness drear:
Poor eyes, no more be dim.

A hand is laid upon mine eyes;

I hear, I feel, I see, I rise

'Tis He, I follow him.

around London, are these long shadows to the lover of nature, convincing him that what seems the unin tural Babylon of artifice and untruth, is yet at least within the region of nature, contained in her bosom and subjected to her lovely laws; is on the earth s truly as the grassy field upon which the child soes with delighted awe his very own shadow stretch out to such important, yea portentous length. Even hither corn the marvels of Nature's magic. Not all the commonplaces of ugly dwellings, and cheating shops tha look churches in the face and are not ashátned, can shut out that which gives mystery to the glen fa withdrawn, and loveliness to the mountain-side From this moment Lucy began to see and feel thing as she had never seen or felt them before. He weeping had made way for a deeper spring in he nature to flow--a gain far more than sufficient to re pay the loss of such a dover as Thomas, if indeed sh must lose him.

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