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Ho was tall, thin, and gentlemanly in appearance, though his clothes, good in themselves, had seen some days of hard and reckless service, as if he had slept out in markets, in night coffee-houses, or some other of the hannts which London provides for vice and crime, and which sometimes are used by the unfortunate. His beard of about a week's growth, the sallowness of his linen, the unwashed and clammy state of his hands and face, with the remnants of so much that was refined and elegant about him, proclaimed that his present condition had not been of more than seven days' duration, but in that seven days much had been done.

He could not be poor.

A gold watch and appendages, a sparkling diamond ring, with other signs of one well to do in the world, marked that some sudden blow had plunged him into his present position; some affliction of mind, some grief, some burning sorrow. It was written in the bloodshot eye, in the haggard cheek, in the vacant stare, occasional, it is true, but existant, of a really intellectual countenance; in the premature stoop, in the glance of horror and fear with which his stolen looks crept round, and sought out each dark corner of street and bye-way. Either that man had done murder, or worse than murder had been done upon him.

We have said he was not poor.

He could scarcely have been, for an event had happened to him that showed him not to know temptation, where a poor man might have been excused for at least feeling it.

During his night-wanderings in search, it appeared, of absence from thought, rather than any abstract object, he had somehow or other reached the gate of St. John, Clerkenwell, that, on hospitable thoughts intent, incited all comers to enter within its colossal dimensions. Pausing to think whether he should go in or not, his foot kicked against something on the ground.

It was a purse.

He raised it to the light which streamed from the tavern window. It was a coarse and common article; but though not very heavy, full at both ends. A portion of its contents were evidently paper; and in the hope of finding an owner's name, he opened it. It contained two pounds, as many shillings, some half-pence, half a dozen pawnbrokers' duplicates, the sum of whose value amounted to a trifle more than the money contained in the purse.

All the tickets were dated that very day.

The man's brow contracted, and he thrust the whole angrily into his pocket, as if some disagreeable but necessary duty had been imposed upon him. This done, he leaned back against the wall, somewhat in the shade, as motionless and still as the ancient gate itself. His ordinary scowl became still blacker than it was wont, and he seemed impatiently to await the course of events.

Hundreds passed, and his eyes keenly fixed upon, studied their countenances, with an anxious though angry scrutiny, and yet moved he not.

The hours waned, the earlier shops begun to close their doors and shutters; the tide of population diminished, and all without became gradually as still, perhaps, as when in 1100 the priory whose ancient but desecrated gate he leaned against, had been founded by worthy Jordan Briset, and Muriel, his wife; and still he moved not.

It was night. All the shops were closed; the rioters even from the taproom and parlour had sallied forth in search of home and slumber, and admonitory lectures, shrilly administered; and still he moved not.

He seemed now in his element, for he was alone, and his brow gradually unbent. It was a dark and gloomy midnight, so that, despite the lamps, which brilliantly illumined some spots, leaving others more deeply and markedly in the shade, he stood within a black and unseen nook. Several drowsy watchmen passed, and marked him not, for they were upon other thoughts bent-upon the end of their allotted duty, and upon the hour when a warm and snug bed should reward their toil.

And night, what is it? Twelve hours, more or less, of veiled light on earth, fourteen days within the lunar sphere, five in Jupiter? No; it is a time when nature seeks for rest from the heat, turmoil, and bustle of life, in miniature and feigned death, and when men should do the same, but which is made the time for folly, sin, and iniquity, to have its run. During the day the busy hum of man is heard in his honester and more open walks of work; at night, forth comes another population, consisting in part of the same individuals, but in search of another sphere of occupation, pleasure, partly innocent, but oftener guilty.

Who comes now, silent and sad along the deserted streets?

It is a man and his wife. They are hand in hand; they clutch one another's fingers, as if in agony. Their steps are wavering an uncertain, and as they come beneath the arch their conversation is very distinctly heard.

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"Oh, Harry!" said the woman, if you would but scold me, reproach me, I should be glad. It was such a blow. Our babes starving at home."

"Hush, Editha,” replied the man, pausing as if to obtain momentary shelter, and to gaze upon her face by the light of the public-house lamp.

"Yes, I will have you scold me. Your silent kindness goes to my heart, and I must have you angry. Our children starving at home, our goods threatened with seizure in the morning, you gave up the very tools your brush, your easel, your canvas, to me to pledge. I pledged them, and while you are gone to seek work, in confidence that I am ministering to the wants of your babes at home, I lose all, and you return to find me vainly weeping by my children, whom hunger and cold had numbed to sleep. I could go mad."

"Editha, it was but your eagerness to rejoin our innocents."

"But how could I lose it, my God?"

'It is not lost," said the deep and hollow voice of the stranger, flinging the purse upon the ground at their feet. "Be more careful next time, for you have made me wait here six hours."

"Stay!" cried the husband.

Next day they received, by a strange porter, the whole of the things they had pledged on the previous night.

*

It was the very next day after this singular adventure that in a certain region of the Borough, narrow, of secondary character, where good and bad houses, ancient mansions and hucksters' shops jostle each other with impudent familiarity; where, between a venerable but dilapidated building, full of associations of other days, and a half modern erection, there starts you forth a prim and cockney dwelling, with brass plate upon the door.

With this house, brass plate and all, it is that we now have business.

On the plate could be read in very distinct and legible characters, the words, " Mr. Theophilus Smith, auctioneer and house agent."

We will enter. In a small parlour, behind which was his office, we shall find Mr. Theophilus Smith indulging in the luxury of a late and bachelor breakfast, for Mr. Theophilus, though often thinking that he had reached a period when matrimony might be both convenient and desirable-he was fifty -had never ventured any further on the road than to indulge in this opinion.

His breakfast was ample and varied, while a morning-paper of twenty years ago seemed to take up the greater amount of his attention.

He was a small man, a very small manperhaps this was the secret of his single blessedness-but if one might judge from the

But he was gone; in their confusion and merry twinkle of his little eye, and the joy, they scarce knew how.

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smirking smile that sat upon his face, he

Come, come, Harry. God is good; let thought himself something exceedingly huge, us hasten to our babes." something not to be measured by feet but a mental yard at once.

"But, child, this purse is full of gold." "Full of gold?"

He was wrapped in the study of the jour

"Yes, Editha, as full as it can hold, and nal, which in this country forms a necessary the tickets are gone."

"Some rich good man must have found them. But come, our babes are still a hungered."

And thanking heaven and their unknown benefactor, they hastened to an eating-house near a hackney stand; and in a few minutes more, in their humble lodging, surrounded by their children, who ate ravenously, the poor artist and his wife, full of thankfulness and joy, were eating the first food they had tasted for many hours, for they had starved themselves to feed their babes.

portion-and the most pleasant portion of a man's breakfast-when there came a knock at the door which made Mr. Theophilus Smith start.

It was not an ordinary knock, and Mr. Smith was puzzled, for he was knowing in knocks; could tell by their intonation whether to advance into the passage and greet the new arrival, or whether to remain halfway, or standing careless with his coat-tails raised behind. But this was not one so easily analysed, it was short, but it was imperious; it lasted not, but it was given in no mild

tones, making the very house shake beneath house, and, glancing his eye around, entered

its influence.

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Open the door, John," he cried, "and

see who it is."

He then listened.

a grocer's or rather a general shop.

"I want some tea, sugar, coffee-"
"How much, sir?"

"How much?-how much would a man

"Is Mr. Smith at home?" said a dry and reasonably consume in seven years?"

commanding voice. "Yes, sir."

"Show me to him." "This way, sir."

Mr. Theophilus remained seated at his breakfast-table, and as this was a hint the boy understood, he at once showed the stranger in.

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That is enough, make your calculation, and I will pay you at once."

The bewildered owner of the general store, as rapidly as his suddenly congealed faculties would allow him, made the required sum,

It was the wanderer already introduced. "In what can I serve you," said Mr. Smith rising, and slightly curling his lip as he viewed the other's costume. "There is a house over the way to be and having approximated as nearly as possi

let."

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ble to truth-in his state of moral petrifaction he never thought of giving him a fourteen years' supply-received the amount, with orders to send to No. 7, and then the stranger retreated.

In this manner were several excellent tradesmen in the neighbourhood startled from their

Why that depends; it is rather out of propriety, but the quick, imperious manner, repair-"

"No matter, I will take it as it is."
"Will you not go over it?"

"No. Enough, I take it."
"But your references or securities ?"
"I have none."

"Then, sir, allow me to say-"

"I will allow you to say nothing, sir. There is seven years' rent," replied the other, throwing a roll of notes upon the table. "Give me a receipt."

This was a new fashion in house-taking, which Mr. Smith so highly approved of that he remained lost in astonishment. "Are you satisfied ?"

"Quite, but-"

with the ample supply of means possessed by the stranger, soon brought them to their senses, and his orders were obeyed.

Furniture, grocery, crockery, everything which would not spoil by keeping, was ordered in and paid for, in ample profusion, for a man's consumption for seven years. The stranger then made his last visit.

Near at hand, in a lane, or rather court, upon which the back of No. 7 opened, the stranger, during his day's peregrinations, had noticed a poor, forlorn widow, whose gaunt and emaciated features proclaimed her utter poverty. This woman, left desolate and alone in her old-age, he secured as a servant, and paying her little debts in the house in which she

"Then give me a receipt, and send me an lodged, at once transfered her to his new resiagreement."

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dence, where, well tutored by her new master, she received all and said nothing.

He then disappeared to return only late at

"No name, sir, how am I to give you a night with a large cartful of books, shelves, receipt?"

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"No. 7, sir?" "The key?"

and all the apparatus of a library. These also were thrust into the interior, after which the stranger entered, and locked the door behind him.

Mr. Smith lost in a denser fog than ever He was now fairly the lion of the neighfills London streets, mechanically made out bourhood, before which all other lions, aye the receipt, and handed it with the key to the and stars too, upon the public-house sign opstranger. posite, faded forthwith into nought; for many No. 7, as he called himself, then left the days nothing else was talked of but the sud

den apparition and as sudden disappearance her determination to keep out all comers, by

of the stranger.

For a few days this lasted, but then, after the bustle of arrangement was over inside, all relapsed into its usual train'; the house, which had not been inhabited for half a century, remained blocked up the same as ever; a padlock still was seen upon the front entrance. The few tradesmen-a butcher, baker, and milk-girl—were all ever seen-alone ever knocked at the door, and these were opened to by the now contented old woman, who never said a word, but paid all bills, and then closed the door, giving vehement evidence of

the loudness with which she made the operation of bolting and barring heard.

If perchance any wanderer passed up or down the street, at a late hour, he was sure to see the chamber of the recluse, with a light burning therein, and many said that they had noticed that on certain occasions more than one form could be recognised as passing to and fro between the candle and the blind.

But these were conjectures; for from the day above recorded, no man or woman was seen to leave or enter that house.

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T was again night, and the mighty city whence commerce science, arts, learning, diffuse themselves over more than half the globe, was clothed in a garb of crisp, cold, bleak, hoar frost. The flags were slippery and unsafe; old gentlemen, fearing contusions and broken bones, became even more cautious than usual in their walk; servant-maids, with arms and cheeks red as early summer cherries, spreading ashes before their doors o'er trottoir and kennel, monopolised a few yards of safety, which the fraternity properly consti

tuting Young England were equally bent in restoring to its pristine state, by means of a persevering system of sliding, under the very nose and authority of the watchman; cabmen vowed more knowingly than ever against macadamisation, expressing their decided opinion that the innovation was unconstitutional; great coats, boas, and comforters, stood at a premium far beyond India bonds and Bank stock; the ladies, like their eastern compeers, looked all eyes and noses; lips, chins, and foreheads, were rare articles amid the visible members; husbands were heard to express their high appreciation of fireside comforts; and wives, nestling their pretty feet amid the flossy and warm rug, were while dispensing their home luxuries, unusually agreeable; elder brothers, presuming upon the great English law of primogeniture, sent the juveniles first to bed, to catch the cold rough edge of the sheets; in fact, it was a bracing, healthy, delightful, cosy winter evening, in the only land-to be eminently patriotic-where winter evenings are cosy, delightful, healthy, or bracing.

The gas, that new luminary which, with its myriad jets, rules the London night, had long been lit, and, with the bright, tempting shop-windows, gave a glimmer only second to day in its clearness. In one street in particular, to which we beg to transport the indulgent reader, a street known by the name of a certain university, celebrated for the eccentricity of its doctrines, the clear atmosphere which generally accompanies a dry frost, combined with a brilliant moon and the long interminable line of lamps to give an artificial day. Few, however, took advantage of this to enjoy the luxury of a winter evening walk, when stepping rapidly along, as if to leave cold behind, one sees in every social comfort and domestic detail, that presently is to be ours, a source of delicious appreciation at no other time experienced. It was the hour when one moiety of the world is dressing for dinner, while another portion is in the enjoyment of the hissing urn's contents, buttered toast, or crumpets, and all those other little indigestions of which we English so highly approve. The homeless, the poor whose living is the streets, the seekers of pleasure, the play-goers, and all those vast hordes which make up the complicated machinery of London life, still, however, poured forth busy thousands, which sprinkled the highways, for London is never still. The good and the bad, those on the errand of

mercy and the actor in crime and vice, equally make up the component parts of those masses which crowd the thousand thoroughfares.

At the corner of one of those turnings which lie between the Edgeware-road and Regent-street, a poor woman, meanly clad, and with a sickly baby in her arms, was singing, in a low and not unmusical voice, a song, which could scarcely have reached to the ears of those on the ground floor of the houses. Not a soul was listening to her, and yet on she walked, stilling the child's cries with the breast, and never once raising her eyes to discover if any effect were produced by the touching appeals she made in favour of the helpless innocent that greedily sucked, and then, as if finding no nourishment, stopped and cried, and yet again returned to its profitless employment. A mother alone, breathing the atmosphere that shrouded wealth and luxury, singing, to earn a morsel of food for her child, and not one living being to listen or offer aid.

Presently a young man turned from Oxfordstreet into the bye street, whistling an air from a popular opera; when, however, he caught sight of the poor mother, he became silent, and passed on quietly, his eyes studiously kept in an opposite direction to that of the woman; as, however, they came nearly abreast, moving different ways, a slight cry from the child caused him to turn his head, and he found a meek, submissive, young and wan face fixed on him half imploringly, half reproachfully. Colouring to the eyes, and mechanically feeling his pockets, he hurried on, as if afraid she should ask him for charity: her look was beseeching enough, and he felt that her voice must be even more so! Yet the poor woman went on singing; so habituated to it, what was one little disappointment to her?

About ten yards beyond, the young man stopped short, looked up the street, down the street, across the street, at the windows, at the numbers, at the name, and then, as if fully persuaded that he had convinced the beggar-woman he was waiting for somebody, and that his stay had no connection whatever with herself, leaned in deep meditation against a lamp-post, despite the cold state of the atmosphere. As this youth will play a very prominent part in our history, we may as well daguerrotype him at once.

About the middle height, certainly not more than one-and-twenty in age, his features were naturally handsome, though the

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