none, and they receive our labored efforts at conversation quite politely, though our questions elicit no more interesting information than that Annie Solomons, a remarkably clean, welldressed child, is buying cheese, and that Moses Polivinksy is taking old newspapers to an office, and that they all attend the Jewish Free Schools. This fact, in the case of the boys, is patent from the serviceable mousecolored corduroys which the schools provide for their clothing. Some County Council posters which we pass bearing the legends "Vote for Jones" and "Vote for Smith" respectively, and looking curiously ill at ease amongst the Yiddish notices, are the cause of a heated controversy between two of our boy "followers," who are ready upon the smallest encouragement to break one another's heads over the difference of opinion existing between their parents as to the individual merits of the candidates. Fortunately at this juncture a diversion is created, for we have halted outside a bookshop, attracted to its window by a rampant lion of Judah, which we afterwards discover is destined to adorn some highly decorated cover of the Torah. The master of the shop is a sad-faced typical Jew of a superior class, and he bears an invasion of two or three of the little girls of our following with meekness and resignation. One of these, indeed, appears to regard a dark corner under his counter as the natural repository of her skipping-rope and other treasures. Her tow-like hair is tied up with white tape, while the other children flaunt colored, if dirty, ribbons, but notwithstanding this disability, she is evidently a young person possessed of Napoleonic powers of organization. At this point she apparently decides that some active effort should be made by the escort towards our entertainment. Diving under the friendly counter she produces her rope and starts a skipping

match amongst the younger members of the party. They are remarkably graceful and pretty performers, who thoroughly enjoy showing off their accomplishments; notable amongst them being a little delicate-featured, brownhaired Polish girl of four, who, while she skips, fondly clasps her red woollen tam-o'-shanter in place of a doll. A baby of two, tightly swathed in a pink shawl is also commanded to do her part, and considering her tender and unwieldy age, the performance is not discreditable. Napoleon meantime acts as mistress of the ceremonies, and when the boys become aggressive hurls defiance at them from within the shelter of the shop. This being ineffectual, she presently executes a masterly sortie to avenge some too gross insult with all the force of a sadly thin leg, a clumsy boot many sizes too large, and a fiercely clenched and microscopic fist. Every now and then a good-natured elder, whose language to us is incomprehensible, but who seems to think that the attentions of the young people are becoming oppressive, will swoop down into the little crowd and disperse it with a well-aimed shake or a cuff; only momentarily, however, for like mushrooms in the night the children spring up again, supervising and intercepting our every step.

But the Sabbath is really at hand now, and a wholesome fear of the wrath of mothers draws our escort gradually away. They go reluctantly with many parting observations and promises that we shall meet again, which we did, but that is another story. "Napoleon" is the last to leave us. She has neither fish nor cheese, nor, it seems, any other responsibilities in life but those which are self appointed. She explains with some importance that the following day she is going to Paris. Her father has found work there, and the family is to join

the

him. And this child, who cannot be more than ten years old, and has only mastered just sufficient English to make herself intelligible (what her mother's tongue may be it is impossible to discover), is quite undisturbed at the thought of changing her home, and only mildly elated at the prospect of fresh worlds to conquer. The preternatural sharpness of the little face leaves me wondering whether Angel who, according to an old Jewish tradition, struck her lips at her birth, to banish from the baby soul those visions of Heaven and Hell with which it had been entertained previous to its incarnation, had done his work quite thoroughly! At all events she is a cheerful little person, and will be quite competent to deal with any difficulties which may lie before her in a harassed and uncertain existence. The Jewish children are infinitely amusing in their complete absence of shyness, in their quickness of comprehension and their vivid imaginations. Yet in spite of the acknowledged goodness of Jewish mothers a sense of homelessness clings about these young people which is inevitably depressing. The strenuous toil of philanthropists and workers, Jew and Christian alike, to ameliorate the conditions of this alien and shifting population, may well find the best results of its labors amongst the children, but there must be times of discouragement, when even these appear unsatisfactorily small. The more honor to those who refuse to be discouraged!

It is certainly with a sense of relief that, as the evening closes in, we find ourselves again in that market street off the Commercial Road, where, howThe Nineteenth Century and After.

ever, on Friday night no market worth mentioning is to be seen. A few children are still playing in the dusk round the Church. The Vicarage door stands hospitably open. In the hall can be seen a white-faced young woman with a small and wailing baby, who is waiting for words of encouragement and counsel. On the doorstep is huddled a little row of children of both sexes, and tightly pressed between them is an extremely fat brown and white spaniel of antiquated appearance. “'E be doin' time, Miss," joyfully explains a small boy who has his skinny arm clasped round the patient animal's neck, to its evident inconvenience-and the little girls giggle appreciatively. The statement proves to be fact-for the spaniel has been poaching on his master's preserves in the country, and has been sent up to spend some weeks of easeful and far from solitary confinement in this East-end Vicarage. It must be noticeable to the most casual observer that about these children, in spite of their obvious poverty, there is a very happy air of trust and confidence. Jew and Gentile, ragged and tidy, they seem to swarm indiscriminately inside the Church railings, and in their unquestioning certainty of the welcome which awaits them they contrive to impart a certain sense of security to this crowded corner of East London. Sin and suffering and misery are packed closely enough into this narrow area of mean streets, but, as we have said before, it is through the children that the work done amongst the poor may expect to bear the best fruit, and here surely the harvest bids fair to be a rich one.

Rose M. Bradley.

Talbot strolled into camp decently disreputable in outward appearance whatever may have been his condition of mind. He found William, Majendie, and the Admiral still sitting over their tea; Charles, he was told, had not yet come back.

"Looking for his Gladstone bag." the Admiral explained.

"I suppose there is no chance of his finding it?" said Majendie. "Are you quite sure of the place?"

Talbot, who had so far listened in rather a pre-occupied manner, shook himself into attention. "I don't think he can," he returned; "I hope not, anyhow." There was a ring of sincerity in his tone; what would happen if Charles succeeded in his quest, and went to call on the Lauriston party in his rich attire? Talbot was rapidly falling into that condition of mental instability in which a man will permit himself to be jealous of even a hatstand, if it displays a better hat than his own.

"It has been a great thing for Charles, having something to do," said the Admiral; "and it shows that he can persevere with a task if he's in earnest about it. I didn't think he could."

"He's done nothing but hunt for the thing, and bathe alternately, all day," Majendie put in. "I'm not sure that it mayn't become a hallucination after all. I've known such things happen in the course of my professional experience. It's like hypnotic suggestion. They hypnotized a man at the hospital one day and suggested to him that he was a mad dog, and he ran round the room biting them. Two of them contracted rabies."

"Did they indeed?" said the Admiral

admiringly.

"What will happen to Charles if it becomes a real hallucination?"

"Oh, he'll pack real things in the im aginary bag," returned the doctor after consulting his experience. "Or else he'll dress in the imaginary clothes."

"And go and call on the other party thus attired," said William laughing. "Great Scott!" ejaculated Talbot; the idea shocked him unutterably.

The others looked at him in surprise, and he collected himself with an effort. "I'd forgotten all about my fish," he explained.

"Anything good?" asked Majendie.

"A few decent perch," he said, getting up and fetching his creel which he emptied out onto the grass. He had quite forgotten their number and size, had almost forgotten their existence, which was a sufficient proof. had Cicely only known it, of her powers of distraction.

"Pounders, by Jove, those three," exclaimed Majendie, “and the other two can't be far off."

Talbot returned to himself a little as he surveyed his catch. "Yes, I had the luck to stumble on a shoal. I caught two more besides these " he stopped; the tongue, he realized, plays one strange tricks.

"What did you do with them?” asked William.

"Oh, I gave them away," returned Talbot going more cautiously now; "a man asked me for a brace, and I thought we should have enough for breakfast, one each, so I gave them to him."

"What do you want to go and give perch away for?" demanded Majendie. "They're the only fish we can eat here, and we don't get too many."

"All right, I won't again," said Talbot, the more meekly, perhaps, because he knew that he was making a mental reservation.

"We don't mind how many chub you give," continued the doctor; "they're beastly, but perch are different. I like them as well as trout."

The consideration of the perch had given Talbot time to remember that he had a character to keep up and that he could not afford to lose himself in meditations, however pleasing they might be. His friends had not yet noticed anything, but it was so unlike him to play a secondary or silent part in any matters which touched the common weal that they would be bound to notice before long; and then they might feel compelled to seek satisfactory explanations. No, he must draw a sharp line between his normal rugged outspoken self and that other self which was proving so plastic to dainty feminine moulding, that other self which he was beginning to think contained all his better nature. Dr. Jekyll must be kept quite distinct from Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde, he reflected unkindly, was quite good enough for his friends; moreover, if there was dubious work to be done Mr. Hyde should do it. Dr. Jekyll should be preserved, candid and honorable, for Cicely.

Having settled this matter to his satisfaction Talbot spoke again. "I have been thinking," he said, "about Charles's adventure this morning. I'm not sure about it's being such a joke after all. Things are coming to a pretty pass if men can't bathe in the early morning without a lot of prying women turning up and pretending to be shocked. It's pretty much what I anticipated, if you remember."

The others admitted that he had predicted something of the kind. "But she won't come again," said the Admiral. "Eve's curiosity satisfied in one direction, soon hurries off in another."

"There are some more Eves," returned Talbot. "They'll all come to see if the horrid tales they've heard are true." He was letting Mr. Hyde have his head.

"Well, from what Charles says, I hope she's not the fairest of her daughters or the youngest," said the Admiral irrelevantly.

"I don't think much of Charles ás Adam," commented Majendie.

"Oh, Charles is the serpent," Talbot said gruffly; "but seriously, my advice is that we move a mile or two up stream. I don't know how you fellows feel, but I have been expecting to see a woman start up from behind every bush ever since we came, and to hear her ask me why I haven't got a tie on. It's in the atmosphere somehow." Talbot indicated the atmosphere with an indignant hand.

"You're a bit hard on them," objected the Admiral. "They haven't been in our way at all as a matter of fact, except just that one time."

"My dear chap," said Talbot impatiently, "that's the beginning; everything has a beginning. It shows that they've begun to wonder what we're like, and when women do that it isn't long before they look round for introductions. That man-Lauriston's his name?-will come and ask us to tea. Charles and William shouldn't have encouraged him."

William protested. "I didn't; and anyhow you can't be downright rude to a man. Besides, he wouldn't ask us; it was plain enough that he didn't want us."

"Well, he'll ask Charles," said Talbot; "Charles will take care of that. Once Charles knows those women we shall have them in and out here all day. But if we move away a few miles we shall be pretty safe." The argument which utilized Charles more powerful than the rest. The others admitted that Charles, was

was

the real danger, and also that his powers would be lessened by distance. "He won't go on looking for his Gladstone bag for ever," added Talbot, "and it's just when he's given it up as a bad job that he will be most likely to turn to the women for something to do." Eventually he brought his friends to see the matter as he did. "We must get our supplies sent from the farm twice a day," Talbot decided in answer to William's question; "and there's sure to be a cottage where we can get water; in fact, I know there is a gamekeeper's in the wood."

"When shall we move then?" asked William rather grudgingly. He foresaw a good deal of labor before him, and he was not altogether convinced of the necessity for the step. As Majendie and the Admiral, however, had come round to Talbot's apparent point of view, he too, acquiesced. "Early to-morrow morning, I should say," suggested Majendie, "before it gets hot. It will be no easy job to tow the old hulk up stream."

Matters had only just been settled when Charles reappeared. Since parting with Mr. Lauriston he had hunted through his allotted portion of osierbed (he had mapped out the adjacent country into patches which he was exploring systematically), and was. now returning for his tea, unsuccessful but in a way satisfied,-for even if one does not know where a thing is it is something to know where it is not. He had not revealed to any one the fact that he had entertained Mr. Lauriston in the afternoon; nor of course had he mentioned the further fact that the other camp was going to change its ground. This was a piece of information which was none the less valuable for being private.

He had however been reflecting; the news imparted to him by Mr. Lauriston was in a measure disconcerting.

The distance between the camps would

undoubtedly be inconvenient when the time came for him to make himself a friend of the family. As has been said, Charles had a great objection to walking unnecessary distances. It was of course possible that his own party might be induced to move also. He had hinted as much to Mr. Lauriston, for he had a clear memory that his friends had stated that they would do so in certain eventualities. He had also a kind of consciousness that he himself might be able to help them to make up their minds, not so much by argument for the course as against it. By a few judicious hints of an early call he could, he had small doubt, inspire them with alarm and so stimulate them to action.

Against the idea, however, was to be set his missing Gladstone bag. It must not be forgotten that he might find himself two miles further away from it than he was now, or rather than he imagined himself to be, for he was losing his first enthusiasm of hope. There remained but one patch of osierbed to explore and he would have searched the whole of the territory immediately surrounding the houseboat. But Charles was not without a vein of shrewdness. It was not impossible, he reflected, that the conspirators would arrange that the Gladstone bag should move too. They were not really dishonest, he knew; they would not care to have the burden of another man's Gladstone bag permanently on their souls. For a fortnight it was different, they were capable of so much baseness; but a Gladstone bag two miles away, untended and unwatched, is in a precarious situation and liable to be stolen for ever. No, on the whole it seemed likely that, if by subtle means he could precipitate a removal, the Gladstone bag would not be left behind. Moreover, it flashed upon him, he might thus discover it; no man can conceal a Gladstone bag effectually