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When little Frank is sent to school in the country, I shall be very much at a loss what to do with myself, but I have the intention of walking down there once a month and seeing him on a half holiday. I am told he will then be at play upon the Heath; and if my visits should be objected to, as unsettling the child, I can see him from a distance without his seeing me, and walk back again. His mother comes of a highly genteel family, and rather disapproves, I am aware, of our being too much together. I know that I am not calculated to improve his retiring disposition; but I think he would miss me beyond the feeling of the moment if we were wholly separated.

When I die in the Clapham road, I shall not leave much more in this world than I shall take out of it; but, I happen to have a miniature of a bright-faced boy, with a curling head, and an open

shirt-frill waving down his bosom (my mother had it taken for me, but I can't believe that it was ever like), which will be worth nothing to sell, and which I shall beg may be given to Frank. I have written my dear boy a little letter with it, in which I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from him, though bound to confess that I knew no reason why I should remain here. I have given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take warning of the consequences of being nobody's enemy but his own; and I have endeavoured to comfort him for what I fear he will consider a bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous something to every one but him; and that having by some means failed to find a place in this great assembly, I am better out of it.

Such (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and beginning to speak a little louder) is the general impression about me. Now, it is a remarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose of my story, that this is all wrong. This is not my life, and these are not my habits. I do not even live in the Clapham road. Comparatively speaking, I am very seldom there. I reside, mostly, in a-I am almost ashamed to say the word, it sounds so full of pretension-in a Castle. I do not mean that it is an old

baronial habitation, but still it is a building always known to every one by the name of a Castle. particulars of my history; they run thus:

In it, I preserve the (461)

It was when I first took John Spatter (who had been my clerk) into partnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than five-and-twenty, residing in the house of my uncle Chill, from whom I had considerable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Christiana. I had loved Christiana a long time. She was very beautiful, and very winning in all respects. I rather mistrusted her widowed mother, who I feared was of a plotting and mercenary turn of mind; but, I thought of her as well as I could, for Christiana's sake. I never had loved any one but Christiana, and she had been all the world, and O far more than all the world, to me, from our childhood!

Christiana accepted me with her mother's consent, and I was rendered very happy indeed. My life at my Uncle Chill's was of a spare dull kind, and my garret chamber was as dull, and bare, and cold, as an upper prison room in some stern northern fortress. But, having Christiana's love, I wanted nothing upon earth. I would not have changed my lot with any human being. Avarice was, unhappily, my Uncle Chill's master-vice. Though he was rich, he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miserably. As Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little fearful of confessing our engagement to him; but, at length

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I wrote him a letter, saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand one night, on going to bed.

As I came down stairs next morning, shivering in the cold December air; colder in my uncle's house than in the street, where the winter sun did sometimes shine, and which was at all events enlivened by cheerful faces and voices passing along; I carried a heavy heart towards the long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle sat. It was a large room with a small fire, and there was a great bay window in it which the rain had marked in the night as if with the tears of houseless people. It stared upon a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusty iron railing half uprooted, whence an ugly out-building that had once been a dissecting-room (in the time of the great surgeon who had mortgaged the house to my uncle), stared at it. (401)

We rose so early always, that at that time of the year we breakfasted by candle-light. When I went into the room, my uncle was so contracted by the cold, and so huddled together in his chair behind the one dim candle, that I did not see him until I was close to the table.

As I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick (being

Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman— our only domestic-always employed, at this time of the morning, in rubbing my uncle's legs. As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turning her face towards me. An involuntary thought connecting them both with the Dissecting Room, as it must often have been in the surgeon's time, passed across my mind in the midst of my anxiety.

"Look at the snivelling milksop!" said my uncle. "Look at the baby! This is the gentleman who, people say, is no one's

enemy but his own. This is the gentleman who can't say no. This is the gentleman who was making such large profits in his business that he must needs take a partner, t'other day. This is the gentleman who is going to marry a wife without a penny, and who falls into the hands of Jezebels who are speculating on my death! (332)

"

(To be continued.)

The Right Hon. Charles T. Ritchie, M.P., remarked that the Chairman had referred to the fact that within a week two compliments had been paid him, and that there was one thing in common to them both- that the compliment had been paid him by assemblies composed of both political parties. To his mind, the compliment paid him on | his assuming his high office was all the greater when it was joined in by those who were not politically associated with him. Both compliments also had in common the great kindness and cordiality with which he had been received on all hands. It was with some reluctance that he separated himself from the office which he had previously held, | not because his new office would entail additional care and anxiety-it certainly would do that-but because it separated him from opportunities of promoting that social legislation with which he hoped his name would always be associated. He believed it was largely owing to the social legislation with which his name had been connected that so much cordiality had been shown him on his assuming his new office. Much had been done, but much remained to be done. The social condition of the people was the greatest care we had. In improving the social

condition of the people, we were greatly strengthening the attachment of the people to the constitution of the country. The Local Government Act of 1888 | had done much to attach the people to local government, and to stimulate their interest in it. Since then he had passed an Act which had enabled the | labourers in the country districts to acquire for themselves some interest in the land by way of allotments and small holdings. The more we could attach the people to the soil, the more contented we should make them. He hoped he had done something to improve the conditions of the people with regard to their dwellings. No more important subject could by any possibility receive the attention of the Legislature. We talked about the evils of drink and about our criminal classes, but how many of our criminal classes had ever had a chance of being anything else? Everything we could do ought to be done to acquire for the young people of the land those healthy surroundings which would make them good citizens. Let us do this as cheaply as we could, but there was no price too high to pay for doing it if it could not otherwise be done.

(422)

Lately, he had attempted to do something in connection with the great curse of drunkenness. He had received the most cordial support from temperance reformers on both sides of the House of Commons, but there were others who had tried to belittle the measure and to say it would have but little effect. He hoped that these now saw their mistake. The manner in which the public had received the Act showed that they believed in it. Having pointed out that for the future the legislation which he would have to propose, being of a financial character, might not be so agreeable to his friends as the social legislation with which his name had been connected, the right hon. gentleman | proceeded :

Well, Sir, a great many people have very great expectations of what is going to happen. It is assumed that there is going to be a large surplus, which I shall have some difficulty in disposing of, and the suggestions which I have already received from various persons who are interested in a reduction of taxation would, if | put into practice, easily dispose of the whole of the National Debt. But, Sir, the time is rapidly approaching when I am afraid I shall have to dispel some of these illusions. It is assumed by many that now the war is over-it almost sounds like a song, but I apologize - all war expenditure has ceased. Well, that is | an entire mistake. It is quite true that the war is over, and we all thank God for it, but please do not forget that we have got the interest to pay upon a very considerable debt which has been raised for war purposes. A large garrison, even reduce it as you may, must still be retained in South Africa | for some time to come, although I hope every opportunity will be taken of reducing it, for a garrison in South Africa is a very much more costly thing than a garrison in England. I do not think I am overstating the mark when I say that every soldier in South Africa costs at least £50 more for maintenance | than he does in England, and when you come to consider the enormous cost that is involved in housing our troops in South Africa, the tremendous cost in labour and material of every kind, you will understand that there is a considerable demand upon the Exchequer with regard to it. Another thing is that the terms of peace contained obligations | upon our part to compensate everybody who had been requisitioned or damaged by the troops. We hoped to be able to get out of that liability for a much smaller | sum than is likely at the present time. I have no doubt myself that, when the account comes to be wound up, it will be considerably more than we