"You must not agitate me, Miss Marston. Oblige me by holding this glass while I speak. If you wish to leave the house, you may do so."

"It is so generous and good of you to threaten me!" says the girl scornfully; "knowing my position. If I had any shelter but this, I would not stop with you another day."

"You are only showing your ingratitude, Miss Marston, I do not threaten you, and I will not be contradicted. I promised your mother before she died that you should have a home here while I live, and I will not turn you away. If you go, you go of your own accord. I tell you again I know perfectly well what is stirring within that busy head of yours. You are like your mother, no better, and no worse, and I knew her well enough; never content, never content unless every man she saw was at her feet."


He had another child, a son, now a man, and a sharp pain shot through the hearts of husband and wife as the words were uttered. But Mr. Chester, once more at the Royal George, did his best to drown uncomfortable reminiscences. His new tenant, who accompanied him to the gin-palace, scarcely opened his lips except to drink. His manner of taking his liquor was not attractive; he raised his glass to his lips with a sly furtive air, and conducted himself throughout in so objectionable and jarring a spirit, that when, within half-an-hour of midnight, he said, churlishly: "I think I may as well get home;" Mr. Chester replied: "All right; you'll not be missed in this company." Thereupon, the stranger, with another sly watchful look around took his leave, to everyone's satisfaction Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men..

of his departure, Mr. Chester, in the act of drinking, suddenly held up his hand. His attitude of attention was magnetically repeated in the attitudes of the persons around him. As when a person in the street stands still, and points at nothing in the sky, he speedily draws about him a throng of interested ones, who all look up, and point at nothing also.

What had arrested Mr. Chester's attention was the faint sound of music from without. Only half-a-dozen notes reached his ears, and they were softly borne to him from a wind instrument.