nute, through the open hall-door, I perceived Jael saunter ing leisurely home from market.

Now, if I was a coward, it was not for myself this time. The avalanche of ill-words I knew must fall-but it should not fall on him, if I could help it.

Jump up on your cart, John. Let me see how well you can drive. There-good-bye, for the present. Are you going to the tan-yard ?"

"Yes-for the rest of the day." And he made a face as if he did not quite revel in that delightful prospect-No

wonder!

"I'll come and see you there this afternoon."

"No?"--with a look of delighted surprise. "But you must not-you ought not."

"But I will!"--And I laughed to hear myself actually asing that phrase. What would Jael have said?

What as she arrived just in time to receive a half-malı. cious, half-ceremonious bow from John, as he drove offwhat that excellent woman did say, I have not the slightest recollection. I only remember that it did not frighten and grieve me as such attacks used to do; that, in her own vernacular, it all "went in at one ear, and out at t'other;" that I persisted in looking out until the last glimmer of the bright curls had disappeared down the sunshiny road-then shut the front door, and crept in, content.

Between that time and dinner, I sat quiet enough even to please Jael. I was thinking over the beautiful old Bible story, which latterly had so vividly impressed itself on my mind; thinking of Jonathan, as he walked "by the stone. Ezel," with the shepherd-lad, who was to be king of Israel. I wondered whether he would have loved him, and seen the same future perfection in him, had Jonathan, the king's son, met the poor David keeping his sheep among the folds of Bethlehem.

When my father came home, he found me waiting in my place at table. He only said, "Thee art better then, my son?"-But I knew how glad he was to see me. He gave token of this by being remarkably conversible over our meal--though, as usual, his conversation had a sternly moral tone, adapted to the improvement of what he persisted in considering my "infant" mind. It had reference to an anecdote Dr. Jessop had just been telling him--about

a little girl, one of o ir doctor's patients, who, in some pas sionate struggle, had hurt herself very much with a knife. "Let this be a warning to thee, my son, not to give way to violent passions."-(My good father, thought I, there is little fear.)" For, this child-I remember her father well, for he lived at Kingswell here; he was violent too, and much given to evil ways before he went abroad-Phineas, his child, this miserable child, will bear the mark of th wound all her life."

"Poor thing!" said I, absently.

"No need to pity her; her spirit is not half broken yet. Thomas Jessop said to me, 'That little Ursula—-” ”

"Is her name Ursula ?" And I called to mind the little girl who had tried to give some bread to the hungry John Halifax, and whose cry of pain we heard as the door shut upon her. Poor little lady!-how sorry I was. I knew John would be so infinitely sorry too-and all to no purpose that I determined not to tell him anything about it. The next time I saw Dr. Jessop, I asked him after the child, and learned she had been taken away somewhere,-I forget where; and then the whole affair slipped from my memory. "Father," said I, when he ceased talking-and Jael, who always ate her dinner at the same time and table as ourselves, but "below the salt," had ceased nodding a respectful running comment on all he said "Father ?"

"Well, my son."

"I should like to go with thee to the tan-yard this after

noon."

Here Jael, who had been busy pulling back the table, re-placing the long row of chairs, and re-sanding the broad centre Sahara of the room to its dreary, pristine aridness, stopped, fairly aghast with amazement.

"Abel-Abel Fletcher! the lad's just out of his bed; he is no more fit to

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'Pshaw, woman!" was the sharp answer.thee art really strong enough to go out ?" "If thou wilt take me, father.”

"So, Phineas,

He looked pleased, as he always did when I used the Friends' mode of phraseology, for I had not been brought up in the Society; this having been the last request of my mother, rigidly observed by her husband. The more so, people said, as while she lived they had not been quite

happy together. But whatever he was to her, in their briet union, he was a good father to me, and for his sake I have always loved and honored the Society of Friends.

"Phineas," said he (after having stopped a volley of poor Jael's indignations, beseechings, threats and prognostications, by a resolute "Get the lad ready to go")" Phineas, my son, I rejoice to see thy mind turning towards business I trust, should better health be vouchsafed thee, that some day soon

"Not just yet, father," said I, sadly--for I knew what he referred to, and that it would never be. Mentally and physically I alike revolted from my father's trade. I held the tan-yard in abhorrence to enter it made me ill for days; sometimes for months and months I never went near it. That I should ever be, what was my poor father's one desire, his assistant and successor in his business, was, I knew, a thing totally impossible.

It hurt me a little, that my project of going with him to-day should in any way have deceived him; and rather silently and drearily we set out together; progressing through Norton Bury streets, in our old way, my father marching along in his grave fashion, I steering my little carriage, and keeping as close as I could beside him. Many a person looked at us as we passed; almost everybody knew us, but few, even of our own neighbors, saluted us; we were Nonconformists and Quakers.

I had never been in the town since the day I came through it with John Halifax. The season was much later now, but it was quite warm still in the sunshine, and very pleasant looked the streets, even the close, narrow streets of Norton Bury. I beg its pardon; antiquaries hold it a most "interesting and remarkable" place: and I myself have sometimes admired its quaint, overhanging, ornamented, house-fronts -blackened, and wonderfully old. But one rarely notices what has been familiar throughout life; and now I was lese struck by the beauty of the picturesque old town, than by the muddiness of its pathways, and the mingled noises of murmuring looms, scolding women, and squabbling children, that came up from the alleys which lay between the High Street and the Avon. In those alleys hundreds of our poor folk living, huddled together in misery, rags, and dirt Was John Halifax living there too?

My father's tan-yard was in an alley a little further on Already I perceived the familiar odor; sometimes a not unpleasant barky smell; at other times borne in horrible wafts, as if from a lately-forsaken battle-field. I wondered how anybody could endure it-yet some did; and among the workmen, as we entered, I looked round for the lad I knew.

He was sitting in a corner of one of the sheds, helping two or three women to split bark, very busy at work; yet he found time to stop now and then, and administer a wisp of sweet hay to the old blind mare, as she went slowly round and round, turning the bark-mill. Nobody seemed to notice him, and he did not speak to anybody. As we passed, John did not even see us. I asked my father, in a whisper, how he liked the boy.

"What boy? Eh, him?-Oh, well enough-there's no harm in him that I know of. Dost thee want him to wheel thee about the yard? Here, I say, lad-bless me! I've forgot thy name."

John Halifax started up at the sharp tone of command, but when he saw me, he smiled. My father waiked on to some pits where he told me he was trying an important experiment, how a hide might be tanned completely in five months, instead of eight. I stayed behind.

"John, I want you."

John shook himself free of the bark-heap, and came, rather hesitatingly at first.

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Anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Don't call me 'sir;' if I say 'John,' why don't you say 'Phineas ?" "

And I held out my hand-his was all grimed with bark dust.

"Are you not ashamed to shake hands with me ?" "Nonsense, John."

So we settled that point entirely. And though he never failed to maintain externally a certain gentle respectfulness of demeanor towards me, yet it was more the natural deference of the younger to the elder, of the strong to the weak, than the duty paid by a serving-lad to his master's And this was how I best liked it to be.

son.

He guided me carefully among the tan-pits-those deep fosses of abomination, with a slender network of pathways

thrown between-until we reached the lower end of the yard. It was bounded by the Avon only, and by a great heap of refuse bark.

"This is not a bad place to rest in; if you liked to get out of the carriage, I'd make you comfortable here in no time." I was quite willing; so he ran off and fetched an old horse-rug, which he laid upon the soft, dry mass. Then he helped me thither, and covered me with my cloak. Lying thus, with my hat over my eyes, just distinguishing the shiny glimmer of the Avon running below, and beyond that the green, level Ham, dotted with cows, my position was anything but unpleasant. In fact, positively agreeable -ay, even though the tan-yard was close behind; but here it would offend none of my senses.

"Are you comfortable, Phineas ?"

"Very, if you would come and sit down too." "That I will."

And then we began to talk. I asked him if he often patronized the bark-heap, he seemed so very much at home there.

"So I am," he answered, smiling; "it is my castle-my house."

"And not unpleasant to live at, either."

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'Except when it rains. Does it always rain at Norton Bury?"

"For shame, John!" and I pointed to the bluest of au tumnal skies, though in the distance an afternoon mist was slowly creeping on.

"All very fine now, but there's a fog coming over Severn; and it is sure to rain at nightfall. I shall not get my nice little bit of October evening."

"You must spend it within doors then." John shook his head. "You ought; it must be dreadfully cold on this bark-heap after sunset."

"Rather, sometimes. fetch

cept this rug."

Are you cold now? Shall I but I haven't anything fit to wrap you in, ex

He muffled it closer round me; infinitely light and tender was his rough-looking boy's hand.

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I never saw anybody so thin as you; thinner much since I saw you. Have you been very, very ill, Phineas } What ailed you?"