hear's reading, he laid down the paper, and said, "I hope there is no truth in that story about young Butler."

"Not a word of it," said she, dryly. "Not a word of it! but I thought you believed it."

"So am I-now; and I trust, in my heart, we have seen the last of him."

"How tired you look, my poor Tony! said his mother, as he entered the cottage and threw himself heavily and wearily into a chair.

"I am tired, mother, very tired and jaded.”

"Nothing of the kind. It was a lesson the young gentleman has long needed, and I was only waiting for a good opportunity to "I wondered what kept you so long, Tony: ive it." for I had time to pack your trunk and to "I don't understand you. What do you put away all your things; and when it was man by a lesson ? "*

done and finished, to sit down and sorrow 'I have very long suspected that it was a over your going away. Oh, Tony dear, gret piece of imprudence on our part to en- aren't we ungrateful creatures, when we cout ge the intimacy of this young man here, rise up in rebellion against the very mercies and give him that position of familiarity that are vouchsafed us, and say, Why was which he obtained amongst us; but I trusted my prayer granted me? I am sure it was implictly to the immeasurable distance that many and many a night, as I knelt down, separaed him from our girls, to secure us I begged the Lord would send you some callagainst danger. That clever man of the ing or other, that you might find means of world, Ir. Maitland, however, showed me I an honest living, and a line of life that was wrog. He was not a week here till he wouldn't disgrace the stock you came from ; saw enough to induce him to give me a warn- and now that he has graciously heard me, ing; and hough at first he thought it was here I am, repining and complaining just as Bella's favr he aspired to, he afterwards if it wasn't my own supplication that was perceived i was to Alice he directed his at-listened to." tentions."

"You forgettwo things, Sir Arthur. This young fellow ancies that his good birth makes him the qual of any one; and, secondly, Alice, in her sense of independence, is exactly the girl to do a folly, and imagine it to be heroic; so Maitland himself said to me, and it was perfectly miraculous how well he read her whole nature. And, indeed, it was he who suggested to me to charge Tony Butler with being engaged to the minister's daughter, and told me and, as I saw, with truth-how thoroughly it would test his suspicions about him. I thought he was going to faint; he really swayed back and forwards when I said that it was one of the girls from whom I had the story."

"If I could only believe this, he should never cross the threshold again. Such insolence is, however, incredible."

"That's a man's way of regarding it; and however you sneer at our credulity, it enables us to see scores of things that your obstinacy is blind to. I am sincerely glad he is going away."

Perhaps Tony was not in a humor to discuss a nice question of ethical meaning, for he abruptly said, "Sir Arthur Lyle read your note over, and said he'd call one of these days and see you. I suppose he meant with the answer."

"There was no answer, Tony; the matter was just this: I wanted a trifle of an advance from the bank, just to give you a little money when you'd have to go away; and Tom M'Elwain, the new manager, not knowing me perhaps, referred the matter to Sir Arthur, which was not what I wished or intended, and so I wrote and said so. Perhaps I said so a little too curtly, as if I was too proud, or the like, to accept a favor at Sir Arthur's hands; for he wrote me a very beautiful letter-it went home to my heart-about his knowing your father long ago, when they were both lads, and had the wide world before them; and alluding very touchingly to the Lord's bounties to himself,-blessing him with a full garner."

"I hope you accepted nothing from him," broke in Tony, roughly.

"No, Tony; for it happened that James Hewson, the apothecary, had a hundred pounds that he wanted to lay out on a safe

mortgage, and so I took it, at six per cent., | made bold to knock gently at a door. To bis and gave him over the deeds of the little repeated summons no answer was returned, place here." and he tried another, when a shrill voice cried "Come in." He entered and saw a slight, sickly-looking youth, very elaborately dressed, seated at a table, writing. The room was a large one, very dirty, ill-furnished, and disorderly.

"Well, what is it?" asked the young gentleman, without lifting his head or his eyes from the desk.

"Could you tell me,' ," said Tony, courteously, "where I ought to go? I'm Butler, an extra messenger, and I have been summoned to attend and report here this morning.'

99

66

"For a hundred pounds! Why, it's worth twelve hundred at least, mother!" "What a boy it is!" said she, laughing. "I merely gave him his right to claim the one hundred that he advanced, Tony dear; and my note to Sir Arthur was to ask him to have the bond, or whatever it is called, rightly drawn up and witnessed, and at the same time to thank him heartily for his own kind readiness to serve me."

1

"I hate a mortgage, mother! I don't feel as if the place was our own any longer."

"Your father's own words, eighteen years ago, when he drew all the money he had out of the agent's hands, and paid off the debt on this little spot here. Nelly,' said he, can look out of the window now, and not be afraid of seeing a man coming up the road to ask for his interest.'

"

I

999

"It's the very first thing I'll try to do, is to pay off that debt, mother. Who knows but I may be able, before the year is over ! But I'm glad you didn't take it from Sir Arthur."

"You're as proud as your father, Tony," said she, with her eyes full of tears; "take care that you're as good as he was too."

All right; we want you," said the other, still writing; "wait an instant." So saying, he wrote on for several minutes at a rapid pace, muttering the words as his pen traced them; at last he finished, and descending from his high seat, passed across the room, opened a door which led into another room, and called out,—

99

"The messenger come, sir!

"Who is he?" shouted a very harsh voice. "First for Madrid, sir," said the youth, examining a slip of paper he had just taken from his pocket.

"His name?" shouted out the other again.

Tony passed on, mounted the stairs, and sauntered along a very ill-kept corridor, not fully certain whether it was the third, fourth, or fifth dɔor he was in search of, or on what hand. After about half an hour passed in the hope of seeing one to direct him, he

"Poynder, sir."

"I beg your pardon," suggested Tony, mildly. "I'm Butler, not Poynder."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A CORNER IN DOWNING STREET.

"Who's talking out there-what's that uproar?" screamed the voice, very angrily. "He says he's not for Madrid, sir. It's a mistake," cried the youth.

WHEN Tony Butler found himself inside of the swinging glass-door at Downing Street, in the presence of the august Mr. Willis, the porter, it seemed as if all the interval since he had last stood in the same place had been a dream. The head-porter looked up from his Times, and with a severity that showed he had neither forgotten nor forgiven, said, "Messengers' room-first pair-corridor-third door on the left." There was an unmistakable diginty in the manner of the speaker, which served to show Tony, not merely that his former offence remained un-same time wore an expression which said as pardoned, but that his entrance into public plain as any words could have spoken, "And life had not awed or impressed in any way you'll see how you like it." the stern official.

"No; you misunderstand me," whispered Tony. "I only said I was not Poynder." "He says he's in Poynder's place, sir." "I'll stop this system of substitutes! cried the voice. "Send him in here."

“Go in there,” said the youth, with a gesture of his thumb, and his face at the

As Tony entered, he found himself standing face to face to the awful official, Mr. Brand, the same who had reported to the minister his intended assault on Willis, the porter. "Aw! what's all this about?" said Mr. Brand, pompously. "You are Mr.—Mr.”—

"I never heard of Poynder till three min-ence of your friend here,-I shall do so this utes ago."

"Very little, certainly; but I don't remem- wait," said Vance, approaching Tony. "All ber telling you so," said Tony.

"And do you imagine, sir, that a bravado about your ignorance is the sure road to advancement? I can tell you, young gentleman, that the days of mighty patronage are gone by; the public require to be served by competent officials. We are not in the era of Castlereaghs and Vansittarts. If you can satisfy the commissioners, you may come back here; if you cannot, you may go back to-to whatever life you were leading before, and were probably most fit for. As for you, Mr. Blount, I told you before that on the first occasion of your attempting to exercise out Tony.

"But he is a warm-hearted-a truly warm--how much of this, without the least of

hearted man "

"Warm enough he seems."

"When you know him better ".

"I don't want to know him better!" burst in Tony. "I got into a scrape already with just such another; he was collector for the port of Derry, and I threw him out of the window, and all the blame was laid upon me!"

that-how unspoiled too in the midst of the flattery he met with! "If you just saw him as I did a few days back!" said Tony, calling up in memory Skeffy's hearty enjoyment of their humble cottage-life.

"If you but knew how they think of him in the Office," said Blount, whose voice actually trembled as he touched on the holy of the holies. cried Tony.

"Well, that certainly was hard," said Vance, with a droll twinkle of his eye,-"I" call that very hard."

"So do I, after the language he used to me, saying, all the while, I'm no duellist; I'm not for a sawpit, with coffee and pistols for two,' and all that vulgar slang about murder and suchlike."

"And was he much hurt?"

"No; not much. It was only his collarbone and one rib, I think; I forget now, for I had to go over to Skye, and stay there a good part of the summer."

"Mr. Blount, take down this gentleman's address, and show him where he is to wait; and don't "— here he lowered his voice, so that the remainder of his speech was inaudible to Tony.

"Not if I can help it, sir," replied Blount; "but if you knew how hard it is!"

"Confound the Office!" Yes; don't look shocked. I hate that dreary old house, and I detest the grim old fellows inside of it."

66

They're severe, certainly," muttered the other, in a deprecatory tone.

"Severe isn't the name for it. They insult-they outrage-that's what they do. I take it that you and the other young fellows here are gentlemen, and I ask, Why do you bear it? why do you put up with it? Perhaps you like it, however?"

"No; we don't like it," said he with an honest simplicity.

"Then, I ask again, why do you stand

it?"

"I believe we stand it just because we can't help it."

"Can't help it!"

"What could we do? What could you do?" asked Blount.

There was something almost piteous in the youth's face as he spoke; and indeed Vance seemed moved to a certain degree of compassion as he said, "Well, well, do your best,-you over the banisters." do your best; none can do more.

"I'd go straight at the first man that insulted me, and say, Retract that, or I'll pitch

"It's two o'clock. I'll go cut and have a cigar with you, if you don't mind," said Blount to Tony. "We're quite close to the park here; and a little fresh air will do me good."

"Come along," said Tony, who, out of compassion, had already a sort of half-liking for the much-suffering young fellow.

"That's all very fine with you fellows who have great connections and powerful relatives ready to stand by you and pull you out of any scrape, and then, if the worst comes, have means enough to live without work. That will do very well for you and Skeffy. Skeffy will have six thousand a year one of these days. No one can keep him out of Digby Damer's estate; and you, for aught I

"I wish Skeffy were here," said Tony, as know, may have more.' they went down-stairs.

"Do you know Skeff Damer, then?" "Know him! I believe he's about the fellow I like best in the world.”

So do I," cried the other, warmly; "he hasn't his equal living,-he's the best-hearted and he's the cleverest fellow I ever met!"

And now they both set to, as really only young friends ever do, to extol a loved one with that heartiness that neither knows limit nor measure. What a good fellow he was

"I haven't sixpence, nor the expectation of sixpence, in the world. If I am plucked at this examination, I may'go and enlist, or turn navvy, or go and sweep away the dead leaves, like that fellow yonder."

66

Then take my advice, and don't go up." "Go up, where?"

"Don't go up to be examined; just wait here in town; don't show too often at the office, but come up of a morning about twelve, I'm generally down here by that

time. There will be a great press for mes- thumb; and Tony pushed his way into a sengers soon; for they have made a regula- small room, so crammed with reams of pation about one going only so far, and another per that there was barely space to squeeze a taking up his bag and handing it on to a passage to a little writing-table next the third; and the consequence is, there are window. three now stuck fast at Marseilles, and two at Belgrade, and all the Constantinople despatches have gone round by the Cape. Of course, as I say, they'll have to alter this, and then we shall suddenly want every fellow we can lay hands on; so all you have to do is just to be ready, and I'll take care to start you at the first chance."

"You're a good fellow!" cried Tony, grasping his hand; "and if you only knew what a bad swimmer it was you picked out of the water."

"Oh, I can do that much at least," said he, modestly," though I'm not a clever fellow like Skeffy; but I must go back, or I shall catch it.' Look in the day after to

morrow."

"And let us dine together; that is, you will dine with me," said Tony. The other acceded freely, and they parted.

That magnetism by which young fellows are drawn instantaneously toward each other, and feel something that if not friendship is closely akin to it, never repeats itself in afterlife. We grow more cautious about our contracts as we grow older. I wonder do we make better bargains?

If Tony was then somewhat discouraged by his reception at the office, he had the pleasure of thinking he was compensated in that new-found friend who was so fond of Skeffy, and who could talk away as enthusiastically about him as himself. "Now for M Gruder and Canon Row, wherever that may be," said he, as he sauntered along;

66

I'll certainly go and see him, if only to shake hands with a fellow that showed such " good blood." There was no one quality which Tony could prize higher than this. The man who could take a thrashing in good part, and forgive him who gave it, must be a fine fellow, he thought; and I'm not disposed to say he was wrong.

The address was 27 Canon Street, City; and it was a long way off, and the day somewhat spent when he reached it.

"Well, sir, your pleasure," said M'Gruder, as Tony came forward.

"You forget me, I see; my name is Butler."

"Mr. M'Gruder?" asked Tony, of a blear-eyed man, at a small faded desk in a narrow office.

"Eh! what! I ought not to forget you," said he, rising, and grasping the other's hand warmly. "How are you? when did you come up to town? You see the eye is all right; it was a bit swollen for more than a fortnight, though. Hech sirs! but you have hard knuckles of your own.'

It was not easy to apologize for the rough treatment he had inflicted, and Tony hlundered and stammered in his attempts to do so; but M'Gruder laughed it all off with perfect good-humor, and said, "My wife will forgive you too, one of these days, but not just yet; and so we'll go and have a bit o’ dinner our two selves down the river. Are you free to-day?"

Tony was quite free and ready to go anywhere; and so away they went, at first by river steamer and then by a cab, and then across some low-lying fields to a small solitary house close to the Thames," Shads, chops, and fried-fish house,” over the door, and a pleasant odor of each around the premises.

“Aint we snug here? no tracking a man this far," said M'Gruder, as he squeezed into a bench behind a fixed table in a very small room. "I never heard of the woman that ran her husband to earth down here."

That this same sense of security had a certain value in M'Gruder's estimation was evident; for he more than once recurred to the sentiment as they sat at dinner.

The tavern was a rare place for “hollands," as M'Gruder said; and they sat over a peculiar brew for which the house was famed, but of which Tony's next day's experiences do not encourage me to give the receipt to my readers. The cigars, too, albeit innocent of duty, might have been better; but all these, like some other pleasures we know of, only were associated with sorrow in the future. Indeed, in the cordial freedom that bound them they thought very little of either. They had grown to be very

"Inside!" said he, with a jerk of his confidential; and M'Gruder, after inquiring