inadequate cinders, would perhaps have afforded them in sufficient strength and plenty, had not her gaze lit suddenly upon the rickety cradle, wherein her last born had pined away his little span of life; then Mrs. Groves answered rather tremulously, "Sir, it is of no use indeed: I took this child from its dead mother's breast, and promised to fill her place here as well as I could; for all I know she may be cherishing my own poor boy at this moment up in heaven."

Sir Toby maintained an impressive silence for a little, as though overcome by sympathy, during which period he was devising new stratagems to effect his end. His extreme desire to obtain this foster-mother for young Hollis may seem strange, seeing that wet-nurses obey general laws, and are always in a supply at least equal to the demand for them; but the fact was, he was positively afraid of the young gentleman's father, whose principal characteristic was one which, in the case of rich and powerful people, is called "an indomitable will," and which, when it occurs among the vulgar, is called "pigheadedness." He did not possess much geniality, and far less that exquisite sympathy which is by some considered indispensable to friendship; but his enmity at least was very lasting, and very lightly earned. Sir Toby had already crossed him in the matter

now on hand, and felt it necessary that the breach should be repaired as soon as possible.

"If that is your only objection, Mrs. Groves," resumed the doctor, "and a very valid one, and one most creditable to yourself it is, I think that I can at once remove it, and even show, that for that little strangers' sake" (he was quoting from the pin-cushions so familiar to his professional eye) "you should accede to my proposal. Mrs. Hollis is quite prepared to do her very best for little Birt, and especially desires that he may be brought up under her own roof: now there is no knowing what future advancement such a position may not procure for him. I knew a boy once who married his master's daughter under these very circumstances, and afterwards became a lord." The worthy knight was indebted to Mr. Hogarth's Industrious Apprentice for this personal reminiscence, but it had its full effect upon the impressionable tailor's wife.

"Well, sir, I'll see about it and let you know. Would there be any objection now to this little girl's coming along with me? because the child is used to her like, and I could then be sure of his being in good hands, at all events."

Sir Toby looked at the small angular being of thirteen years' old or so with great benignity, and after a passing guess at the feelings of Mr. Hollis

upon finding such an apparition haunting his house for months, and perhaps for years, replied, "Oh dear no, certainly not; it is the very arrangement indeed which we had intended to propose, ourselves."

CHAPTER IV.

UPON the very next day the Chartist tailor's wife and Miss Maria Keggs, her assistant, were installed in Bulbul Square. A gorgeous apartment on the third floor, about the size of the entire Rag Street mansion, was solely delivered up to them, and therein they held their state, in contempt of the whole army of the Hollis dependants, their sworn foes; their position was precisely that of Charles the Twelfth at Bender, during his honourable captivity in the Turkish empire. For certain politic reasons entertained by the higher powers, they were tolerated and upheld, but the obedience that was paid to them was tardy and compulsory enough.-" A low woman, and a dirty drab of a girl ringing bells, and ordering vittels— hoity toity," observed the cook. "There she goes again for milk for young coachey, I'll be bound," exclaimed the young person, whose mission it was to answer the nursery summons, and she shook her cherry-coloured ribbons more than once with

an emphatic "Drat their imperance!" before she toiled upstairs.

This sort of conduct was perhaps more excusable in Lucy than in cook, inasmuch as the former had set her cap, with the aforesaid ribbons in it, at John Birt without effect, before and even during the time wherein he was plighted to his deceased wife; but it was without any excuse in the master of the house, who had perhaps given the cue to his domestics, by expressing his opinion that the best possible thing that could be done with the cub, was for its father to enter it in a Burial Club, and to get the money immediately. "A remark, my dear sir," observed Sir Toby Ruffles, "in which I cordially coincide, but which I think injudicious, expressed as it was in the nurse's hearing, who has the fanatic attachments of her class."

Indeed, if he had seen the kindled eyes and pallid lips of poor impulsive Mrs. Groves, and noticed how she clung to the child yet in her arms, when she reached her sanctum, after listening to these same words, they would have seemed to him not only injudicious, but dangerous. She had undertaken her new position contrary to the dictates of her conscience, and contrary to the wishes of her Chartist husband; and besides, as it has been already hinted, when provoked, she was for the time implacable. It was certainly very