Doctor, her professional attendant, even, at the instance of his noble patient,-"My good Sarah, Sir Toby, my waiting-maid that was, you know, if you would be so very kind," actually himself stepped up to that little entresol, between the stables and nothing, upon the second day, and allowed that Nature was doing her work there very well; considering (he meant) that Mr. Field, the quiet person in dull black, who might have taken a hundredweight of fern-seed, so invisible was he to Sir Toby, was a medical nobody, and Sarah Birt not of a rank in life to put Nature out of her way. Queer bottles with corks in the middle of them, soft snowy linen, comfortable stuff in saucepans, and a kindly message or two, more prized than any of those crumbs from the rich man's table, found their way from the mistress to her servant. Common Sorrow, the great begetter of Love, is dreadfully promiscuous; and, besides that, it was Christmas time.

One might tell that by the excessive cold of the streets; by the pure snow which, though it fell so noiselessly, was at once espied and swept up into half-liquid slosh in gutters, or cast down from the roofs of houses defiled with soot; by the sham holly and mock mistletoe in the provision shops, and the increase of starving faces glued against their window-panes; by the shivering throngs that

besieged Workhouse doors at night, and froze outside the blank walls when it was full; and by the sudden augmentation of the begging fraternity, who reminded you of the epoch point blank, with their "Sixpence, your honour, for a poor fellow, this cold Christmas time!" whereat some say, "Why, bless my heart, and so it is!" and give; and some, "Upon my soul, my good man, I have nothing for you!" and so pass on, jingling their money; and some- -Let us see for ourselves what this man will do, for instance, who must needs be a Dean at least, if not a Bishop, by his sleek good looks; whose double chin resembles the big B before Benevolence itself: what will he do for yon cringing vagabond, so boastful of his blue hands and bleeding feet, who dogs him as a lawyer M.P. dogs a minister? He will give him a sovereign surely, at the very least, now that he has made him limp from Pall Mall to Bond Street!

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Oh, my Lord!" (the lawyer M.P. is not a more subtle strategist,) "may your Lordship, for Heaven's sake, give me a shilling, give me a shill— shill-shilling;" (interruption on the pavement on the part of an old apple-woman warmed with gin, who drives the beggar into the street, and causes even Benevolence itself to knit its brows,) "Give me, my Lord, a shill-shill. [You cut away, you blackguard!" aside to another gentleman of the

same profession, "I've been a follering of this 'un for a mile and more, and do ye think I'm going to let you pick my honest gains out of my pocket] -a shill-shill-give me sixpence, and may Heaven bless your worship; give me six-sixThey had got to Bulbul Square by this time, and the beggar, seeing his friend pull up his shirtcollars, knew very well that he must be nearing his destination, and that there was not much time to lose "Oh, Sir, pray give me a copper, give me only a cop-cop-cop- -"

"I tell you what I'll give you, my good fellow, if you don't move on," said the other, speaking for the first time; "I'll give you in charge to the police."

"Well, that's a blessed fine thing for a Christmas box, that is," said the beggar, admiringly; “here's a game in a civilised community; why, darn your looks, if I didn't think you was a Christian!"

He was not the first, by any means, who had been misled by the appearance of Sir Toby Ruffles, M.D.; and really, when that gentleman arrived in his fair patient's room upstairs, he had very much the air of a ministering angel whose wings had been temporarily left below with his great-coat and umbrella. When he said, "How are we this fine morning?" to the lily mother with her rosebud child beside her, it was as though the south wind was whispering.

"Quite well, Doctor; quite strong, and so grateful!" was the answer; was the answer; "those bells" (faintly) "draw tears from me at every peal.”

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'Yes, a most annoying clamour, certainly, my dear Madam; but a line from me to Mr. Poppy, the incumbent, will soon stop that.”

"Stop them! oh no, Sir Toby, not for worlds; think what a host of comfort they must bring to others, who need indeed spiritual aid far less than I, perhaps, but who will forget weakness, poverty, discomfort, in their pleasant sounds, and bless His name whose birth they joy to tell of." "Febrile symptoms," muttered Sir Toby; "head affected."

"And oh, Doctor! I have some bad news indeed from Sarah; they say that she is sinking: Sarah Birt, you know, whom you were so kind about only a few hours ago. You'll go again, won't you, Doctor? Anything I can sendThe poor lily broke down suddenly, and the dew fell from her hidden eyes like rain.

"My dear Madam, this excitement is ruinous; I'll

go at once. Compose yourself, I beg; we will do all we can for the young person in the Mews, believe me.

To distress a lady of title would have been about the last crime Sir Toby could be accused of, but the duty Mrs. Hollis thus imposed upon him for

the second time was especially distasteful; it seemed to him, somehow, that a visit of his to any of the lower classes was, mathematically speaking, a sort of waste of power, like setting Nasmyth's great steam-hammer to crack nuts. "There are

some women in the world, I do believe," he muttered to himself, "who would send for the Archbishop of Canterbury to an expiring costermonger. The Mews, indeed!"-his serene expression began to dimple into smiles-" with yonder pump for Helicon, and these steep stairs for green Parnassus!"

Sir Toby Ruffles, such is the genial influence of a joke of our own making, entered the little garretroom a gladder and a better man. Within a stone's throw of that place there were scores of human habitations (with death and new-born life, perhaps, in the same chamber too), removed many degrees lower from that of Sarah Birt than was hers from the apartment of her mistress, and yet there was contrast enough to strike Sir Toby forcibly. The rosy, subdued light of the room, which he had but just quitted, seemed scarcely to have come from the same source with these pale, sickly gleams; its fresh warm atmosphere was exchanged for a smoky cold one; the odours of Bond Street for the steam from a neighbouring dunghill; and instead of the huge chair by the

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