"He's been to the public," groaned Mrs. Adams, half aloud. Stephen, fortunately, did not hear this remark, or his senses did not take in its meaning; he groped his way across the kitchen, and sat down on the chair opposite his father.

"Is Mark at home?" he asked, with a shiver, looking round the kitchen.

"No, he ain't; no fear of him coming home tonight, I'm thinking," replied his father, gloomily.

"Where is he gone? what is he going to do?" questioned Stephen, confusedly; "is anything settled ?"

"There's one thing settled, at any rate," murmured Mrs. Adams; "he's broke his mother's heart, he has; not that he much cares for that, I dare say."

"Aye, and brought down his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave," groaned the poor needle-grinder, heavily, as he raked the fire in search of more heat to assuage his laboured breathing. "I wish I had died, I do, before I saw this day."

"Father, don't say that," said Stephen, huskily. "Why not, lad? There ain't much to live for, Heaven knows. It has been a weary world for me lately, to sit by and see your poor mother working herself to the bone, without being scarce able to give a helping hand; and now, what with Mark being turned out of Mr. White's employment, and either one or other of us had up to court, there

ain't much to live for. It would be an easier kind of death to die sitting up in one's own bed than with one's back to the prison wall."

"You shan't go to prison, father, if I can help you," said Stephen, still in the same hoarse whisper, as he leaned forward, and laid his hand on his father's.

"Aye, would you, Toddy, lad; I know well you'd help me if you could," replied Mr. Adams, kindly. You're a good boy, Toddy, a quiet, good boy; and if it pleased God to make you a bit weak and useless like, it ain't no fault of yours. But bless my heart! what a cold little hand it is."

Stephen withdrew his hand suddenly from the sympathising grasp, and covered his eyes. The pain occasioned by his father's words seemed to bring back the giddiness and faintness; he remained silent for some time, with his face hidden away between his fingers; at length, with an effort, he turned once more to his father, and asked, in a voice almost inaudible from its distress :

"Father, which would you rather have, the dray and horse you were wishing for a while ago, or see Mark out of this trouble?"

"I'd rather see Mark out of this trouble," replied his father, slowly, "than have a golden crown laid down at my foot, I would. If I had the breath in my body or the strength in my limbs, I'd kneel down in the road and break stones day and

night rather than see any of my blood brought up in a court o' justice."

"Good-night, father," said Stephen, rising wearily, and laying his hand on the back of the chair to steady himself. "Good-night, father; good-night, mother dear; to-morrow, please God, I will help you."

With a giddy head, a sick heart, and trembling step, poor Stephen crept up to the quiet garretroom, where little Benjamin was already asleep. How brightly the day had broken for him—the day which through the long year had shone like a beacon of hope before him, and which was to have seen his cherished scheme realized! How darkly it had closed in; the beacon had been utterly extinguished; the future seemed now like a black, impenetrable cloud, and the present was a misery such as the poor boy had never experienced before.

He sat down beside Benjamin's bed, and laid his throbbing head on the cool pillow. The room was pitchy dark; the rain dashed against the window, and the wind moaned outside among the chimney-tops. Stephen tried not to think, for every thought seemed, with its burden of grief, to make his poor head feel heavier, and beat with a keener pain; and through the slashing of the rain and the moaning of the wind, and Benjamin's quiet breathing, rang Mark's bitter, cutting words, "a sneak and a hypocrite; you have been the same