THERE

HERE is no reason, because a woman is coarse, hard-working, low-born, and badly-dressed, she should be without that inconvenient feminine appendage a heart. Dorothea trembled and turned pale when the door of the Holborn gin-shop swung open and the man she most wished to see in all the world stood at her side.

He would have been a goodlooking fellow enough in any rank of life, but to Dorothea, and others of her class, his clear, well-cut features and jetty ringlets rendered him an absolute Adonis, despite the air of half-drunken bravado and assumed recklessness which marred a naturally resolute expression of countenance. He wore a fur cap, a velveteen jacket, and a bright-red neckcloth, secured by an enormous ring; nor was this remarkable costume out of character with the perfume he exhaled, denoting he had consumed at least his share of that VOL. XV.NO. LXXXVI.

other half-quartern which postponed his departure.

Dorothea slipped her arm in his, and clung to him with the fond tenacity of a woman who loves heart and soul, poor thing, to her cost.

His manner was an admirable combination of low-class gallantry with pitying condescension.

Why, Doll,' said he, what's up now? You don't look hearty, my lass. Step in and take a dram; it'll do you good.'

She glanced admiringly in the comely, dissipated face.

"Ah! they may well call you Gentleman Jim,' she answered; 'you're fit to be a lord of the land, you are; and so you would, if I was queen. But I doesn't want you to treat me, Jim, leastways not this turn; I wants you to come for a walk, dear. I've a bit of news for you. It's business, Jim,' she added, somewhat ruefully, or I wouldn't go for to ask.'

L

His face, which had fallen a little, assuming that wearied expression a woman ought most to dread on the face she cares for, brightened considerably.

'Come on, lass,' he exclaimed, 'business first and pleasure arter. Speak up, and let's hear all about it.'

They had turned from the main thoroughfare into a dark and quiet bye-street. She crossed her workworn hand on his arm and proceeded nervously

'You say I never put you on a job, Jim. Well, I've a job to put you on now. I don't half like it, dear. It's for your sake I don't half like it. Promise me as you'll be careful, very careful, this turn.'

'Bother!' answered Jim. 'Stow that, lass, and let's have it out.'

Thus elegantly adjured, Doll, as he called her, obeyed without delay, though her voice faltered and her colour faded more than once while she went on.

'You told me as you wouldn't love me without I kep' my ears open, and my eyes too. Well, Jim, I've watched and watched old master and young, like a cat watches a mouse-hole, till I've been that sick and tired I could have set down and cried. Now, to-day I wanted to see you so bad, at any rate, and, thinks I, here's a bit of news as my Jim will like to learn. Look, now: young master, he's a-goin' to a place they call Bragford by the five o'clock train. Oh! I mind the name well enough. You know, Jim, you always bid me take notice of names. Well, it's Bragford. Bragford, says he, quite plain, an' as loud as I'm a-speakin' now.'

'Forty-five miles from London,' answered Jim,' and not ten minutes walk from the branch line. Well?"

'He's a takin' summut down for a young lady,' continued Doll. 'It is but a small package, what you might put in your coat-pocket, or your hat. Oh! Jim, Jim, if you should chance on a stroke of luck this turn, won't you give the trade up for good and all? If you and me had but a roof to cover us, I wouldn't ask better than only liberty to work for you till I dropped.'

Tears stood in her eyes, and for a moment the face that looked up into the ruffian's was almost beautiful in its expression of entire devotion and trust.

He had taken a doubtful cigar from his coat - pocket, and was smoking thoughtfully.

'Small,' said he, then it ought, by rights, to be valuable. Did ye get a feel of it, Doll, or was it only a smell?'

'He took it hisself out of the jeweller's hands,' answered Doll; 'but I hadn't no call to be curious, for he told me what it was free enough. There ain't no smell about diamonds, Jim.'

'Nor you can't swear to them neither,' replied Jim, exultingly. 'Diamonds, Doll! you're sure he said diamonds? Come, you have done it, my lass. Give us a kiss, Doll, and let's turn in here at the Sunflower, and drink good luck to the job.'

The woman acceded to both proposals readily enough, but followed her companion into the ill-favoured little tavern with a weary step and a heavy heart. Some unerring instinct told her, no doubt, that she was giving all and taking nothing; offering gold for silver, truth for falsehood, love and devotion for a mere liking, rapidly waning to indifference and contempt.

Tom Ryfe, all anxiety to find himself once more in the same county with Miss Bruce, was in good time, we may be sure, for the train that should carry him down to Ecclesfield. Bustling through the station to take his ticket, he was closely followed by a well-dressed person in a pair of blue spectacles, travelling, apparently, without luggage or impedimenta of any description. This individual seemed also bound for Bragford, and showed some little eagerness to travel in the same carriage with Tom, who attributed the compliment to his latelyconstructed coat and general appearance as a swell of the first water. He don't often get such a chance,' thought Mr. Ryfe, accepting with extreme graciousness the other's civilities as to open windows and change of seats. He even went

so far as to take a proffered cigar from the case of his fellow-traveller, which he would have smoked forthwith, but for the peremptory objections of a crusty old gentleman who arrived at the last moment, encumbered with such a paraphernalia of railway-rugs, travelling-bags, books, newspapers and magazines, as denoted the through passenger, not to be got rid of at any intermediate station. The old gentleman glared defiance, but made himself comfortable nevertheless; and the presence of this common enemy was a bond of union to render the two chance acquaintances more than ordinarily cordial and communicative.

Smoking being prohibited, they had not proceeded many miles into the country ere the gentleman in spectacles produced a box of lozenges from his pocket, and, selecting one for his own consumption, offered another, with much suavity, to Tom Ryfe, surveying, meanwhile, with inquisitive glances the bulge in that gentleman's breastpocket where he carried his valuable package; but here again both were startled, not to say irritated, by the dictatorial interference of the last arrival.

'Excuse me, gentlemen,' said this irrepressible old man, I cannot permit it! Damn me, sir,' turning full round upon Tom Ryfe, I won't permit it! I can detect the smell of chloroform in those lozenges. Smell, sir, I've the smell of a bloodhound. I could hunt a scamp all over England by nose-by nose, I tell you, sir, and worry him to death when I ran into him; and I would, too. Now, sir, if you choose to be chloroformed, I don't. I'm not anxious to be taken out of this compartment as stupid as an owl and as cold as a cabbage, with a pain in my eyes, a singing in my ears, and a scoundrel's hands in my waistcoat pockets. Excuse me, sir, I'm warm -I wouldn't give much for a chap that wasn't- and I speak my mind!'

It seemed a bad speculation to quarrel with him, this big, burly, resolute, and disagreeable old man. Tom Ryfe, for once, was at a nonplus. He murmured a few vague

sentences of dissent, while the passenger in spectacles, consigning his lozenges to an inner pocket, buried himself in the broad sheet of the 'Times.'

But it was his turn now, and not even thus could he escape. Staring grimly at him, over the top of the paper, his tormentor fired a pointblank question, from which there was no refuge.

'Pray, sir,' said he, 'are you a chemist?'

The gentleman in spectacles signified, by a shake of the head, that was not his profession.

'Then, sir,' continued the other, 'do you know anything about chemistry-volatile essences, noxious drugs, subtle poisons? I do.' (Here Tom Ryfe observed his ally turn pale.) 'Permit me to remark, sir, that if you don't you are like a schoolboy carrying a pocketful of squibs and crackers on the fifth of November, unconscious that a single spark may blow him into the Christmas holidays before he can say "knife!" Let me see those lozenges, sir-let me have them in my hand; I'll tell you in five seconds what they're made of, and how, and where, and why!'

Here the man in spectacles, with considerable presence of mind, threw the whole of his lozenges out of window, under cover of the 'Times.'

'You frighten me, sir,' said he; 'I wouldn't keep such dangerous articles about me on any consideration.'

My

The old gentleman executed an elaborate wink, denoting extreme satisfaction, at Tom Ryfe. If you were going through,' said he, 'I could tell you some funny stories. Queer tricks upon travellers I've seen in my time. Why I was the first person to find out the sinking floor dodge in West Street. evidence transported three people for life, and a fourth for fifteen years. I once saw a man pulled down by the heels through a grating in one of the busiest streets in the City, and if I hadn't seen him he would never have come up alive. Why the police apply to me for advice many a time when people are missing. Don't distress your