just look what Tom is about, will you?" cried he, from his

room.

George looked out into the court. The varnish was simmering over, simmering over on the stones, and on one of Tom's poor old crippled feet, but he never stirred. Statuelike, he sat with his unshorn chin on his breast, and his knotty hands grasping his knees, staring at it. There were his pet birds hopping about him as usual.

"Eh! Tom, what are you about?" cried the clerk, sharply. The next moment he saw. Tom had gone home and taken the wages of his long and faithful service from the Great Master's hand.

“Poor old fellow!" said George. "How wroth he would be if he knew he had let his last brew spoil!”

And then the men came and carried him quietly indoors. Changes, like misfortunes, rarely come singly, and this change was felt by everybody, especially following, as it did, so close upon Mr. Joshua Hawthorne's loss. It was several months before the firm got another varnish-maker as skilful as old Tom Aldin, and during the interim Robert was instrumental in bringing back that mean young scamp, John Otley, whom he found struggling vainly with his bad character to get decent employment elsewhere. John watched the pot, though he was scarcely fit to be trusted with anything else; he could not steal varnish without burning his fingers, and as he hated pain he was out of temptation. He had been rescued from the brink of starvation, but Mr. Reuben Otley, at first, professed to be very angry, though he did not attempt to turn the poor wretch off, and he remained, serving the firm in various inferior capacities as long as he lived, and looking up to Robert with a slavish gratitude which was the noblest moral trait he ever showed. After the lapse of a few months, Mr. Constant was restored to his office of head clerk, his substitute being found incompetent, and then all went on with the firm in the regular old way.

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CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME.

"MAIDEN with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orb a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

"Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet.

"Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,

May glides onward into June.

"Gather then each flower that grows,

Where the young heart overflows."-LONGFELLOW.

I.

THE house in Maiden Lane was very dull now that Robert Hawthorne had it to himself;—duller and dismaller than it had ever been since it was a house perhaps. He used to say sometimes, when he dropped into the little tea-shop in the Market-place for a five minutes' chat with Miss Kibblewhite and her niece Dorothea, that he was almost afraid of staying in it by himself of nights.

"You should take a wife," cried old-maid Kibblewhite, briskly; "it is not good for man to be alone-we have high authority for saying that, haven't we?"

Robert, blushing, met Dorothea's pleasant eyes, which drooped before his instantly.

Dorothea, Dorothea! go back to thy embroidery frame; to thy doggess Prim and her puppies in the corner: Robert Hawthorne will live and die a bachelor unless he can win one certain white flower to wear in his breast whose perfume is the only perfume in which his soul delights.

You remember the gathering of posies in Lady Leigh's garden two years ago, when Robert Hawthorne first experienced that curious confusion of speech which sometimes befalls a man in the presence of a perfectly harmless young woman? It was Lilian Carlton who was gathering the posies ---Lilian Carlton, and little Lola, who had been sent out to play after a naughty fit. Also, perhaps, you may remember the nutcracking at St. Wilfred's fair, and the musical evenings

in the organist's house? Since then Lilian had sprung up to early womanhood, and, at intervals, Robert Hawthorne had seen her often-seen her in a misty visionary fashion: sometimes as an angelic being to be gazed on from afar off, and admired humbly, worshipfully; sometimes as a dainty, bright lady high exalted out of his reach; but, at last, a tenderer light had dissipated the glamour of strangeness and divinity that surrounded her, and he saw her as the one sweet fair maiden to be loved by his man's heart. It had been slow growing, this first and only passion that Robert Hawthorne ever felt, and it was deep-rooted. Its fibres had knitted themselves into every niche of his being, and in imagination he saw its blossoms crowning his life with a beauty such as only Love reveals to youth.

Like

And Lilian! Lilian never knew since when it was that Robert's step a long way off echoed in her heart, or the rose of her face deepened under his gaze as the rose of the garden deepens in the sunshine. But one day her eyes were opened, and a revelation came to her. Since then she had been rather shy of Robert, and when their hands met she blushed and trembled and drew back, and Robert, seeming to catch this infectious shyness, became more reverent of her than ever. Twenty times and more he was on the point of speaking, when some reserve or shrinking on Lilian's part, though he lacked not courage in common matters, checked his ardour. Captain Miles Standish, of puritanic New-England memory, he was more afraid of a "thundering 'No' point-blank from the mouth of a woman," than of any other catastrophe that could happen to him-not that he need have feared a thundering "No" from Lilian, for, in spite of her timidity, her secret preference betrayed itself over and over again. On the whole they were very happy. He could gather the blush roses whenever they met, and wear them as a fragrant posy in his memory, and no doubt but she had some sweet word to dream over and caress in his absence-for each knew the other's love as surely as if it had been sworn a thousand times.

This was why Robert Hawthorne blushed at meeting Dorothea Sancton's pleasant glance. He thought she had his secret. But Dorothea had nobody's secret except her own.

II.

"Lilian, who came with you to the garden-door to-night?—

was it your father?" Lady Leigh asked, looking suspiciously at her protégée from under her knitted brows.

"No, madam," replied Lilian, with a traitorous blush. Little Lola, demurely at work near the darkening window, turned her black eyes that way and listened.

"Who was it then?" Lilian apparently had some disinclination to utter the name, for she hesitated, so Lady Leigh spoke it for her. "Was it Mr. Robert Hawthorne ?

"Yes, madam."

Lilian thought she was going to escape any further question, for Lady Leigh, observing Lola on the watch, sent her to bed, and then went on with her lamb's-wool knitting in silence for a long while. Lilian also got to her twilight work, and sat down in the seat by the window that Lola had vacated. She and her patroness spent very many of these quiet evenings now. Lilian sometimes thought, if she had to go on spending such evenings until she was as old as Mistress Alice Johnes! Lady Leigh seemed to forget for half an hour or more that she was not alone; it was then nearly dark, and Sempronius brought in the little iron basket of bright fire which was set upon the hearth in the drawing-room every night all the summer through, by way of being cheerful. His entrance and the bustle he made in closing the curtains, stirred her out of her reverie; and, peering round in search of her companion, she espied her in her distant nook with her hands down-dropped upon her knees, and her gaze resting abstractedly on the rich folds of drapery which Sempronius had just drawn over the external gloom. Lilian had been much given to these pensive fits of absence latterly. Lady Leigh was very observant of her for several minutes, during which her attitude never changed; but, at last, as if her gaze were drawn round magnetically by that other gaze watching her, she turned her head, and their eyes met.

"Come nearer to me, Lilian; I want to have some conversation with you," said Lady Leigh, austerely, and Lilian approached trembling; she suspected what was coming instinctively, and dreaded it. "I have been very good to you, child, have I not? You owe everything to me that you are; I have fed, clothed, taught, and loved you, ever since you were no higher than my hand-is it not so ?" The catalogue of benefits was precise.

"Oh, yes, madam! you have been my benefactress; you have been very kind indeed to me!" cried Lilian, warmly.

"And what return can you make me, what return will you make me, for all I have been and done to you?"

Lilian seemed puzzled.

"Madam, you have all my gratitude," said she, hesitatingly.

"But I shall not be satisfied with a mere barren gratitude," replied Lady Leigh, with great impatience; "gratitude is only words-affection diluted into words; it costs the giver nothing, and is worth nothing to the receiver. I have had gratitude enough-from you I am prepared to expect something moreperhaps a sacrifice."

Lilian's heart began to beat very fast, but she never spoke; with her eyes fixed on her patroness she waited. "Perhaps a sacrifice," Lady Leigh repeated. "You are not to deceive me, Lilian. Has that young man who brought you home to-night ever talked any love nonsense to you?

66

No, madam," answered Lilian, rather proudly, but blushing nevertheless.

"There is only a silent understanding between you? You need not reply. I perceive all you could not tell me; I am an old woman, and have seen into deeper things than young girls' love secrets."

Madam, you are mistaken; I have no love secrets," said Lilian, in eager haste and confusion.

"Dear child, do not be at the pains to tell me any white lies. I know both what you have and what you have not. And as the young man has not been trying to delude your imagination through your ears yet, you must give him no more opportunities, and if he seek them you must discourage him." Lilian's head drooped, and there was a strange mist and dimness between her eyes and the fire.

"I know where the end would be if you did not," Lady Leigh continued; "you would by-and-bye begin to fancy that there were only you two in the world, and you would cry to be married. There would be dismal scenes, such as I witnessed a little while ago, because I should not give you up. I have trained you to be just what I like about me, and I shall retain you near me as long as I live, in spite of everybody and everything."

Lilian's heart gave a great bound, and then went on palpitating and fluttering, like a poor little bird that its captor holds by one wing while it struggles wildly to escape. Lady Leigh was quite conscious of the effort, but she did not relax her