in vivid colouring the creation of the heavens and the earth. There was a stand with a small microscope upon it, and a shelf containing a few scientific and theological works of a miscellaneous nature. Two gems of art, though strangely out of place amid their somewhat plebeian surroundings, gave an air of refinement to the room-relics these, of better days: one was an exquisitely carved statuette of Beatrice, the other, a fine bit of unframed landscape painting fastened over the mantelshelf.

The parlour contained four individuals; a small child of six years old, with a regular gipsy face, a cropped head of black hair, and a very soiled pinafore; a little wizened looking elderly lady busy adding up accounts at the table; a tall, handsome boy of thirteen, clad in black knickerbockers, stretched full length on the hearth-rug, propped up on his elbows, his head resting on his hands, and his dark eyes eagerly devouring the pages of a torn, dirty looking volume-and lastly, a broad-shouldered young priest with remarkably long legs, who was sitting in front of the fire, his elaborately slippered feet in somewhat dangerous. proximity to the few red embers still glowing in the grate. The fact that the wizened little lady absorbed in accounts, a young brother, and three sisters, were in a great measure dependent upon his exertions for a subsistence, accounted most probably for the slightly harassed expression of his countenance, and the worn, shiny appearance of his clerical black; as also the fact of his being senior curate of a fashionable Donnington church, with the liberal stipend of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, might account for the slippers. A poor curate, placed in such afflictive circumstances, naturally proved an object of interest to deft-fingered, tender-hearted young ladies, although a better exercise of their susceptible charity, might have resulted

more profitably in a good flitch of winter bacon for the not overstocked larder of No. 3, Snow Lane.

"What have you there Tony?" asked the long-legged ecclesiastic rousing himself from a lengthened meditation. "Midshipman Easy.' It's a stunning book. I say,

"I must go to sea;" and the boy sprang from the ground lightly as a greyhound, tossing his greasy book on to the table, and startling the nervous little aunt from her accounts.

"You'll do no such thing," said the Rev. James, removing his feet from the top bar of the grate where they were becoming uncomfortably warm; "do you dream of running away?"

"So it is, and I hope you will never attempt such a thing. We'll see what sort of a fellow two more years of mathematics and Latin will make of you. Then if you still wish to be a sailor you shall, but until then-no more of this nonsense Do you understand?"

"All right," said Tony carelessly. "I say, Meg-"

"Do you want your ship?" asked the child eagerly, descending from her dreary station in the window seat.

"No-you're always bothering about that ship. I want my boots if you'll fetch them. I am going with Jim to meet Dr. Beresford. Have the girls come in yet?"

"Yes. I heard Lottie's voice ten minutes ago."

"Then I recommend you to tidy yourself. My! what a guy you are-you'll catch it if they see you: have you been getting in the coals?"

"No," said Meg indignantly; "I've been helping Obadiah to break chips in the yard," and she departed to

fetch the boots, finally disappearing into the upper regions to put on a clean pinafore, and reduce the dirty hands and arms to the approved raw beefsteak hue, by means of a severe application of cold water and common soap.

More cheerful was the scene in the back parlour, where the fire burned brightly, and two girls stood talking in the gloaming by the window-the elder, tall, elegant, and beautiful-the younger, a queer little slender thing with a lanky figure, a head of short, thick, and not particularly tidy black hair, and a pair of uneasy dark eyes.

A strange, wild life lived Lottie Forryst in that restless little soul of hers, and not always a happy one, as her somewhat careworn brow testified. Of a nature intense, proud, yet sensitive, she suffered keenly and enjoyed keenly as only such natures can; with a mind half chaos, and a heart full of poetry and passion and deep, mournful notes of music unable to struggle into outward expression. Many such move around us,-souls full of crude philanthropy, and bright ethereal dreams oddly intermixed, often turned into beautiful harmony by the steadying discipline of sorrow, yet oftener, alas! resulting in lives, which are one long, strange mistake.

By no means a pretty girl was Lottie Forryst, and she knew it, and daily endeavoured to reconcile herself to the unpleasant fact. An attempt hitherto unattended with success, for no woman however plain, can be supremely indifferent to her personal appearance. Yet notwithstanding Lottie's plain face, shabby mourning dress, and workworn hands, there was all the daintiness of the lady stamped upon her.

And how came these two maidens to be living in so poor an abode? That afternoon they had been talking of it-of the time long ago, when their father, David Forryst,

a hot-headed youth then of one and twenty, had foolishly fallen in love with a little Italian flower girl and married her. A most romantic affair certainly; keenly had the imaginative youth enjoyed it then; perhaps not quite so keenly did he relish the consequences of his rash act, when after a vain appeal to his father's clemency, he turned in angry grief from the gates of his ancestral home, a portionless son. Whither should he flee, and what should he do? In the first place, he fled to the city of Donnington, and in the second he turned pedagogue, just succeeding in keeping himself from debt, and his wife and children from starvation, proudly refusing to ask his father's assistance, and in his pride keeping aloof from every one save Dr. Ebenezer Beresford, an old college chum, who rose up a true friend to David in an hour of sore need, when sickness and poverty were making sad havock in the little home at No. 3. The mother and three younger children were carried off by fever in one short week, and the school dispersed. David never rallied: after three miserable years of weakness and depression, he also died. The assistance hitherto rendered by Dr. Beresford, had been entirely of a professional nature, David in his pride refusing all pecuniary aid. Now however, the good doctor felt at liberty to act as he pleased, and it was chiefly owing to his kindly help that James had obtained his brief college education, and his appointment to the senior curacy of St. Augustine's, Turf Street.

Lottie had been companion for nearly a year to an English lady residing in Rouen, but had now returned home for good to superintend Meg's education, and Hyacinth, the beauty of the household, contributed her share towards the maintenance of the family by painting handscreens for an extensive Berlin Wool Repository in

the heart of Donnington. The little lady familiarly called "Aunt Lucy," although merely a distant connection of David Forryst's, had rendered herself an invaluable treasure to the family by her ready help and unwearied services in the time of their sorrow and difficulties. She was darner of stockings, recipient of confidences, and sympathizer in general.

So the orphans stood talking of the past, the present, and the future. Too severe and recent had been the pain of the past to allow of their looking very hopefully into the future. Across it rested a dark shadow of weariness and work, and daily contact with unloving unsympathetic minds, less acutely felt by the sanguine and beautiful Hyacinth, than by Lottie with her plain features and oversensitive heart.

"I suppose it will result in governessing," said Lottie after a prolonged gaze at the falling rain pattering briskly now upon the roofs of the houses, and the fog curling slowly round the chimney-tops.

"I had far rather be upper housemaid in some grand nobleman's mansion," laughed Hyacinth, "where the son and heir would accidentally catch me sweeping the stairs some morning when he descended earlier than usual to go a fishing expedition Of course he would fall in love with me on the spot, defy the world, and marry me. Oh! Lottie what fun, when he discovered, that instead of a plebeian little housemaid, he had married a girl with a most respectable pedigree and a rich old uncle. By the way, Lottie, where is that old uncle Dick?"

"In India, I believe, Dr. Beresford told Jim that Chiswick Park is a perfect wilderness No one knows whereabouts uncle is, he never stays more than a month in one place. I don't want his money I am sure, but I do