wrong; nothing but wrong. There's a manner in the little villain, too, that promises something better. He's but a babe! Poor miserable thing! and what a knowing little rascal! Well, it won't ruin me- -thank God!-it can't ruin me." And then Mr. Capstick again laid himself across the counter, and said a little sternly to young St. Giles-" Come here, you sir."

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Yes, sir," said St. Giles, stepping up to the muffin-maker, and looking confidently in the face of his patron.

"If I was to be your friend, and try to save you from being hanged-there, don't cry," for St. Giles affecting sensibility had already raised his arm to his eyes-"If I was to save you from being hanged, for else you're pretty sure to come to it, would you be a good boy, eh ?"

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Oh, wouldn't I, sir!" cried St. Giles. "I jest would then." 66 Well-do you think you could sell muffins ?" And this question Mr. Capstick put in a low, cautious voice, with his eye turned watchfully towards the back parlour, as though he feared some sudden detection.

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"I should like it so!" cried young St. Giles, rubbing his hands. Capstick was evidently taken with the boy's alacrity for the profession, for he quickly said-"Then I'll make a man of you. Yes; I'll set you up in business. With these words Capstick produced a small basket from behind the counter. "Be a good boy, now," he said, an honest boy, and this basket may some day or the other grow into a big shop. Understand; you can understand, I know, for you've a lot of brains of some sort in your eyes, I can see. Understand, that if you're civil and pains-taking, your fortune's made. This is the best chance you ever had of being a man. Here's a basket, and a bell,"-for in the days we write of, the muffin-bell was not unmusical to legislative ears— "and two dozen muffins. You'll get two shillings for 'em, for they 're baker's dozens. Then come here to-morrow; I'll set you up again, and give you a lumping profit for yourself. There's the goods;" and Capstick, with exceeding gravity, placed the basket in one hand of St. Giles, and a small metal bell in the other. "Tell me, my boy, did you ever see Lord Mayor's show ?" "Yes, sir; many times," said the seven year old St. Giles.

"And the Lord Mayor in his gold coach, and the trumpeters before him, and all that? Now, attend to me"-and the muffin

maker became still more grave. "Attend to me. There's many

a Lord Mayor who never had the start you have—who never was

so lucky to begin life upon muffins. So, when bad boys come about you and want you to idle and play with 'em, and do worse than that it may be just think of the Lord Mayor, and what you may come to.'

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'Yes, sir, I will, sir," said young St. Giles, impatient to begin

business.

"Then go along with you," cried Capstick ; "and mind people don't call me a fool for trusting you. There, go," said the tradesman, a little pompously-" cry muffins, and be happy!"

St. Giles jumped from the step into the street, and rang his bell, and chirped "muffins " with the energy of a young enthusiast. Capstick, with complacency upon his face, looked for a time after the child; he then muttered-" Well, if it saves the little wretch, it's a cheap penn'orth."

"At your old doings again!" cried Mrs. Capstick, who from the dark nook of a back parlour had watched, what she often called the weakness of her husband.

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My dear Mary Anne," chuckled the muffin-maker as though laughing at a good joke-" 'tis the little rascal that, I told you, set upon me in Bow-street. I've given him a few of the stale ones -he's rogue enough to pass 'em off I know. Ha! ha! I like to see the villany of life-it does me good. After, as you know, what life's done for me, it's meat and drink to me to see the crops of little vagabonds coming up about us like mustard-seed—all of ''em growing up to cheat and rob, and serve the world as it should be served; for it's a bad world-base and brassy as a bad shilling." And with this ostentatious, counterfeit misanthropy, would the muffin-maker award to his best deeds the worst motives. And Mrs. Capstick was a shrewd woman. She suffered herself to seem convinced of her husband's malice of heart,-knowing as she did its thorough excellence. But then the muffin-maker had been bitterly used by the world. "His wine of life," he would say, "had been turned into vinegar.'

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'Well, you'll be ruined your own way," cried Mrs. Capstick. "And that, Mary Anne," said the muffin-maker, "is some comfort in ruin. When so many people would ruin us, it's what I call a triumph over the villany of the world to be ruined after one's own desire.'

"Good afternoon, ma'am-why, you're welcome as the flowers in spring," said Mrs. Capstick to a woman flauntily dressed, and burning in red ribands, who suddenly entered the shop; a woman,

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whose appearance did scarcely suggest the beauty and tenderness of spring flowers. I have n't seen you these three months." "Oh lor, no! said the woman,

of all of us."

"that court will be the death

Let not the reader imagine that the speaker complained of the tainted air or confined limits of any court in the neighbourhood. No, indeed; she spoke of no other court than the Court of St. James.

"What! Queen Charlotte will so often make you take tea with her, eh?" said the muffin-man, with his severest sneer. "It's too bad; she ought n't to be so hard upon you.

"Oh, there's so much dining and dining-cabinet dinners, my dear, they call 'em-for they always eat most when they've most to do, that I might as well be in the galleys. However, they're all going to the play to-night, and—it's a poor heart that never rejoices-I'm going there myself."

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Well, I don't know that you could do a better thing," said Capstick; "there's a good deal to be learnt at a play, if fools will learn anything."

There's

"Oh! a fiddle's end upon learning. I go for a nice deep tragedy; something cutting, that will do me good. nothing so refreshing as a good cry, when, my dear, you know after all there's nothing to cry about. Tears was given us to enjoy ourselves with—that is, tears at the play-house.

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"

They wash out the mind, like a dirty tea-cup," said the muffin-maker," and give a polish to the feelings."

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They always do with me, Mister Capstick," said the woman, "I never feel so tender and so kind to all the world as when I've had a good cry; and, thank Heaven! a very little makes me cry. What we women should do, if we could n't cry, my dear, nobody knows. We're treated bad enough as it is, but if we could n't cry when we liked, how we should be put upon-what poor, defenceless creturs we should be!"

"Nature's been very kind to you," said the muffin-maker. “Next to the rhinoceros, there's nothing in the world armed like a woman. And she knows it."

"I'm not talking of brute beasts, Mister Capstick," said the fair one, tossing her head; and then approaching the shop-door, she looked intently down the street.

Mrs. Capstick, to change the conversation, carelessly observed"You are not looking for anybody, Kitty?"