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erous, was false. You, who won upon the wife, until she forgot her duty to GOD, to him, and to herself. You, in whom she has believed, and whom she has tried to love, through all her guilt, should be the last to reproach and scoff at her for the wrong you learned her to commit.'

With his hands thrust deep in his pockets, he staggered up and down the room. Backwards and forwards with a drunken laugh he walked.

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'Can it be so few months ago that you swore my love could incite you to any ambition that he was unworthy of any thing so priceless? Your own words! Did you not hold before my eyes the hope of wealth?'

'Have you not made me that basest of human kind, a false wife, a false mother? Why should I have dragged my child, his child, into the depths where I have fallen? Was it not enough that you should take from him a false wife, but you must also take his child?' 'Who wants his child? Who ever wanted it? Let him come and take it. It 's none of my business. May be you would like to take it to him. I dare say he'd be glad to have it.'

There was something in the great blue eyes of the woman that seemed to read instinctively into the man's heart. Whatever it was she saw there written, it was quite enough to send the flush out of her face and the blood back to whence it There was no more fire in her eyes; they were cold and frozen as soon as they had deciphered the words. knew that he was understood.

came.

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'Come, now, there's no use feeling bad about it. You see, I've thought this thing well over, and it's my opinion that he ought to have the child; and so I've just opened negotiations with him about it. We must have money, and '

'You have applied to him for it? O my GOD! has it come to this already?' 'Come to this! Of course it has come to this. Why should n't he pay to get his child back? No agents or lawyers

for me. I do my own business. See here,' and the man drew from his pocket a newspaper, and read: 'W. T. is informed that his proposition is accepted, and he will be trusted to do as his letter has promised. The money will be placed or sent wherever he says.-R. S. C.' That's the way my letters are answered. I wrote to him that I would return the child if he chose to give a hundred dollars. I would n't ask more than I thought he could raise. I would be generous, you see, if I am not proud. Ha! ha! ha! We'll have money, and get out of this accursed city, where one can't move through the street without the fear of getting a pistol-ball through him, or a knife-thrust when he least expects it.'

The woman had knelt upon the floor, and was bending over the box where lay the still sleeping child. There were no tears upon her face, but a long, sobbing moan supplied their place. The man had crossed the room to where she knelt, and steadied himself against the wall. The tone in which he now addressed her meant to be a softening of his speech, but only came as a thick, hissing jumble of words:

'Don't cry. There's no use crying. We must have money. Do n't you know you can't keep the child? We must have money, and get rich, and then, when we get rich, we'll take it away from him again. What can he do? He'll be poor, and we 'll be rich.'

Lower and lower her head bent, and more stifled the sobs. The man moved from his position, and once more walked about the room. He was searching for something, but still watching the woman as he sought. Under the pillow of the wretched bed, under the bed itself, he slid his hand in the basket where her scant stock of sewing lay; under the cloth that covered the shelf whereon were a few tracts, a brush and comb, and a bit of broken mirror. There was a look of cloudy disappointment in his face, as he stood in the centre of the room and gave a distorted glance on

every side. A quick, unsteady dash towards the mantle, the raising of a battered candlestick, and the hurried gathering up and pocketing of some small coins, ended the search. Without another look at the prostrate woman, he staggered from the room, and down the creaking stairs.

Hours went by, and the night fell down upon Swash-street like a great shadow that was never to rise. No lamps lit up its darkness but those sending out their sickly, heavy light through dingy windows, farther obscured by pasted paper or rags. The street was still alive with shapes stealing backwards and forwards through the gloom, passing close, and peering into each other's faces with a ravenous look, and grunting out a recognition.

Hours went by, and the great bells of the city rang out the chime of midnight, and yet Swash-street was not still. The shapes were going about in the gloom, and brave cats were venturing from back-yards and cellars to the open street. The lazy sound of a violin came up from a dimly-lighted basement, and the mad tattoo of a heavy-shod dancer mingled in with the roars and oaths of applause from the same spot. Hours went by, and the tenants of the great, dirty, greasy house heard the long cry of a child. A long, choking cry it was, as though in terror. White Mag,' who lived in the next room on the left, says she heard the cry of the child early in the night, but, as she thinks, it slept between that time and midnight. In this opinion she was corroborated by 'The Jumper,' a gentleman who tenanted a room on the right. Each agreed that at last the cry became so painful that they felt it a necessity to their own rest to make inquiry into the cause. As a marked coïncidence, of which in all its phases they freely conversed the next day, and declared they saw a 'Providence in it,' White Mag and The Jumper met at the door of the room from whence issued the cry. The re

sult of their conference was, that they should knock.

They knocked, but there was no answer, save only the prolonged scream of the child. The Jumper applied his hand to the knob, and the door opened. He entered, White Mag following with the drowsy lamp. On the floor, leaning over the box, with one arm and her head lying upon the child, so that the little one could not move, was the woman. The Jumper raised her in his arms and carried her to the bed, while White Mag took up the child. It was not until he had laid the woman on the bed, as he told one or two particular friends confidentially next day, that he knew she was not drunk. The Jumper can be pardoned the suspicion, when it is remembered that it was no rarity for him to be called in on such occasions. When he had laid the woman on the bed, he bent for an instant over her, and then, turning to White Mag, he nodded his head oracularly towards the figure, and said: 'The woman's dead, that's sure as pop.' With the child nestling close up to her, White Mag drew near to the bed, and held the light to the face of the woman.

Yes, she was dead. Dead so long that her limbs were set and stiff. Dead with the same look of terror marked upon her face that she had last worn in life.

Hours went by, and the morning broke coldly on Swash-street. A gray, heavy, stupid morning, when it required no effort of imagination to believe that great physical force was necessary to propel the body through the solid atmosphere. The day got well on, and the story got well around that a woman lay above stairs, found dead by White Mag and The Jumper, with the child almost smothered under her. Every body knew all about it, and some who had heard little, added very much; and so the story grew and became strange. The people of Swash-street gathered upon the sidewalk and discussed the

matter. One was eager for the coming of the coroner; another gave it out as a certainty that the woman's husband 'could n't fail of hanging;' a third questioned the right to hang the man without the evidence of the woman.

Hours went by, and the coroner and his jury were with the dead woman. The official took a quick look around the room, and, strangely enough, went through a search almost identical with that of the man the day before. With a business-like celerity he swore the jury, called White Mag and The Jumper, took their evidence, cutting them off on all enlargements; asked a small, fussy individual in steel spectacles, whom he addressed as 'Doctor,' for an opinion as to the cause of death; made a short speech to the jury indorsing his opinion, received their verdict, recorded it, said, 'Thank you, gentlemen,' and hurried away; consuming, in all, the exact time of fourteen minutes and twelve seconds.

'The LORD only knows what their names was,' White Mag responded to the inquiry of a quiet, well-dressed, portly man of about thirty, who had been one of the jury. "They 'd n't been in this place more'n a fortnight; but if any body wanted my idee as an honest woman, I should say right down flat that there woman never wa n't that man's wife.'

The Jumper crammed his little finger into the bowl of an unlighted pipe, with emphasis, and said: 'You're right there, old gal.'

'But was there no one about who knew the name?' asked the gentleman again, as he lifted the certificate of the coroner and read: 'Woman, name unknown, died of aneurism of the heart.'

'Not as I knows of, 'ceptin' that gentleman does; he's the landlord of this house,' and White Mag pointed to a dried, sunken-eyed man, with dirty gray hair, who had just entered the room for the first time, and walked up to the bed with his hat thrown forward over his eyes, and his hands in his pockets.

.'Do you know the name of the people who live in this room, Sir?' was the gentleman's question.

Instead of answering, or paying the slightest attention to the question, the landlord turned upon White Mag fiercely:

'How came this woman to die here? Have n't I said, over and over again, that I would n't have people dying in my house? What's the reason I was n't told of this before?'

'Oh! come now, bossy,' said the old woman in a wheedling tone; 'we could n't help it, you know. She went off kind o' sudden like. Accidents will happen, you know.'

The landlord seemed mollified, and the gentleman addressed him again. 'I don't know their names,' was his answer. 'They paid in advance. They paid by the week in advance. That's not his child, though. So he told me. It's the woman's child. A strange name, too. I do n't remember it now, though. Oh! the airs these paupers put on sometimes is Faugh!' And the landlord jingled some loose silver in his pocket, and walked down stairs whistling.

The gentleman looked curiously and thinkingly at the child, who now stood by White Mag's side, clinging to her dress.

'And what is to become of the child?' he asked in a vacant way, as though he did not expect an answer.

'Why, it must go to the poor'us or the farms, of course,' was the woman's reply.

The gentleman walked over towards the bed, and gazed upon the dead woman as though he did not see her, but was thinking of something far away. In a few minutes he drew pencil and card from his pocket, and wrote; then, turning quickly to White Mag, he said:

'I will take the child. When the man returns, give him this card, and tell him to come to me.'

White Mag and The Jumper stood transfixed with astonishment, and the

gentleman putting the card and several pieces of silver into the hand of the woman, said:

'Do what you can to make the body look decent, and I will send an undertaker here.'

He took the hand of the child, who yielded quietly to his guidance, and passed out into Swash-street.

The people who were gathered about the alley-way stared in blank surprise to see the gentleman who had been taken on the jury walk away with the child of the dead woman above-stairs.

IL

UTILE-STREET.

MR. ALLEN CONROY walked back and forth through the little parlors of No. 14. The light of the rooms was well toned down by the careful closing of the outer blinds, which Mr. Allen would, in each few minutes of his promenade, turn nervously, that he might look out into the street.

There was not much to be seen from the windows of No. 14 Utile-street-the clean and little travelled cobble-stones basking in the sunshine; the jaunty, fresh painted houses opposite, with their well-kept stoops and shining knockers and door-plates; the wholesome-for the city-trees that lined the curb, and the perpetually lounging serving-girl who hung over the area-gate, were the principal features that made up the everyday life of Utile-street.

It was not a fashionable street; far from it, for there were shops and stores in Utile-street, but they seemed to have always been part of it. They assimilated to the homes about them, and had a quiet, lazy, well-painted look. The groceries were clean-windowed, and had well-sanded floors, while the men who served them were white-aproned and rosy-cheeked. There were rear-shops also upon Utile-street, from whence the clink of hammers came faintly all day long, and men with grimy hands and paper caps, wearing cheerful faces, would pass in and out.

In all Utile-street there was no assumption of style. The dwellers in those neat and home-like houses knew that every passer-by could discern the workshops in the rear, and they were not ashamed to announce their avocations on the sign-boards over the alleys beside their dwellings.

There was no sham about No. 14. It was a plain, straightforward house, built by him who dwelt in it, with a covered alley running through one side, bearing over its arch the announcement that 'Allen Conroy, Carpenter and Builder,' could be found by pursuing its lengths; while a neat plate with the same name, but without the addition, graced the hall-door, and satisfied the passers-by that the house and shop were one property.

Mr. Allen Conroy was evidently awaiting and anxiously expecting the arrival of somebody. As the time went on, he made more frequent stoppages at the blind, and more frequent consultation of his watch. By and by there was the sound of a firm, steady step upon the pavement, and Mr. Allen hastened again to the blind. A disappointment; so said his face as he turned away from the window, and stepped towards the door to greet the incomer. This was a man of about forty, of a light and fragile build, but carrying decision in every look and movement. There was a quiet force in his bluish-gray eyes, that spoke him as one accustomed to be obeyed, and prepared to enforce obedience.

Mr. Allen took the stranger's hand warmly, and spoke some words of welcome, but his manner betrayed a preöccupation of mind, and his eyes still wandered to the half-closed blinds as though they would peer through the uncertainty into the street beyond. He was no new guest at No. 14 who held the hand of Mr. Allen, and who dropped it to seat himself in the corner of a comfortable lounge, in a manner that showed how entirely he felt at home, and welcome.

'What now, Conroy? More business !

Always business! Why do you not make haste to be rich, that you may get that look of care off your face? Why, man, when I first knew you, a journeyman carpenter, stinting yourself of holiday-time, and playing cook in that back attic, with me for your next neighbor, a struggling medical student, your face never wore that look.'

'Perhaps I was happier then,' was the answer of Mr. Allen, spoken with a serious tone.

'Perhaps! No perhaps in the matter. Of course you were happier. You were not a contractor then. You were not planning and scheming to run up a square or two of houses here and there. You were not plotting to obtain the award for some big job. There was only one ambition then, my dear fellow, and that was to save money enough that you might take home that little baby wife, with the flaxen curls.'

'And droll enough it sounds now, at twenty years' distance, when I think of the comfortable, middle-aged good wife above-stairs, who will certainly weigh a hundred and sixty, as that same flaxenhaired baby,' responded Mr. Allen.

'The only matter, Conroy, in which I ever was jealous of you. Why did I not meet that little flaxen-haired woman before you ever knew her? But you always were a fortunate dog, even in money-making.'

'Cloyden, you are trying the effect of ridicule on me. It comes with a bad grace from a man who has been fortunate enough to make himself a millionaire in a few years by the indulgence of His Majesty of Brazil, and that without work, to poke his fun at a poor mechanic who piles up by hard labor enough to rest his bones on when age overtakes him.'

'Well! well! Come, old friend,' answered Cloyden with a good-humored laugh, 'I will be like Mr. Pickwick's barmaid, and nobly forgive you all, on condition that you open your heart and confess what it is that has settled this look upon your face.'

Mr. Allen Conroy made one or two quick turns across the floor, with a gesture of impatience, and then seated himself.

'What confession have I to make, Cloyden? Can I not enjoy my hour or two of blues without having just cause for them?'

'Old friend,' answered the other, dropping instantly the bantering tone, and with a serious look, rising from the lounge and taking the hand of Mr. Allen, 'I hope we have not reached that time when we can no longer confide in each other! I have come to you this morning to make confession; a confession that very nearly reaches my inmost life; one that I have as yet made to none other, and one which, should you differ with me in the course I desire to pursue, must be buried forever between us two. Will you not return my confession with your own?'

'You know me well enough, Robert, to feel certain that any confidence you may offer me will be sacred, and any advice I may give will be founded on twenty years of honest and unaltered friendship.'

There was a silent pressure of the hands, and each waited for the other to speak. It was Cloyden who first broke silence:

'Is it a bargain? Do you accede to my proposition? Shall it be confession for confession, old friend? Or must I go away without having delivered myself of the weight with which I came charged?'

'I have little to tell, Cloyden, that would interest you- the cares of business only.'

'The special care?'

There was another long silence that showed a struggle on the part of Mr. Allen, and an eagerness on the part of his friend.

'I am acting weakly, perhaps, Cloyden, in seeking to conceal any thing from you, more especially something so easily told; but I am no more than a type of my race, who avoid a terror

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