a pair of boots which she had bought at a secondhand clothes-shop, and which Ellen was very thankful for, although they were much too large for her.

Mr. Taylor came home at midnight in a state of drunken delirium. He had drunk deeply-so deeply, that when he slammed the street-door behind him, he found himself in the midst of a thousand mocking eyes, growing upon him and blasting him with their hideous looks; and as he groped his way in terror up the dark stairs, a thousand misshapen hands strove to bar his progress. They fastened on him and clung to him; and the faster his trembling hands beat them down and tore them away, the more thickly they multiplied. So, fighting and suffering and groaning in his agony, the drunkard staggered to his room, and Dan and Ellen shuddered as they lay and listened. Well for them that they could not see as well as hear; well for them that they could not see him pick the crawling things (existing only in his imagination) off his bedclothes and throw them off with loathing; that they could not see him, bathed in perspiration, writhing in his bed and fighting with his punishment. He could not endure it. It was too hor

rible to bear. The room was full of creeping shapes, visible in the midst of the darkness. He would go out into the streets, into the light, where they could not follow him. Where was the door? He felt about the walls for it. It was gone; he was closed in, imprisoned with his terrors. He beat about with his hands deliriously. The window! ah, they had not closed that! He dashed at the panes, and tearing open the casement with his bleeding fingers, fell from a height of twenty feet and met a drunkard's death.

CHAPTER XIII.

DAN DECLARES THAT IT IS LIKE A ROMANCE.

THE old gentleman with the hour-glass who never sleeps does not look a day older, and yet four seasons have played their parts and have passed away. The white hairs in George Marvel's head are multiplying fast, and he grumbles at them as usual, but has given up the task of pulling them out. Great changes have taken place among Joshua's friends; and Dan, looking up from his work, remarks sometimes that it is almost like a romance. Judge if it is.

When Mr. Taylor was buried when the shame of his death was forgotten and only sorrow for it remained-the children found themselves in one of those social difficulties from which many wiser persons than they are unable to extricate themselves. For the first three or four weeks after their father's death, Mrs. Marvel and Susan had between them managed to defray the small expenses of the house; but the tax was heavy

too heavy for them to continue to bear. One day, however, unexpected help came. George Marvel, in his quiet way, had conceived a great idea, and in his quiet way had carried it out. Here were these two children thrown upon the world. Not children exactly perhaps, for they were nearly seventeen years of age; but one was a cripple, and the other was a girl. They had been good children, and their character stood high in the neighbourhood. Who ought to assist them? The neighbours. Some one must take it in hand, and why not he as well as any other person? No sooner had he made up his mind than he set to work. He went round to the neighbours personally, and told them what his errand was. Poor as they were, they gave their mites cheerfully, with scarcely an exception. When he had made the round of the neighbours, he went to the workshops, and the men there gave their penny each, and the boys their halfpence, and so swelled the total. His own employers and fellow-workmen were more liberal than any. He did not forget his tradesmen, his butcher and baker and grocer. They all gave; and the result was that, at the end of the three weeks during which he had been employed in his self-imposed task, he had a sum

of not less than twelve pounds four shillings in his possession, to hand over to Dan and Ellen to assist them through their trouble. The night he made up his accounts, he told his wife what he had done, and she blessed him for it, and was silently and devoutly grateful that Providence had given her a husband with such a heart.

The following evening George Marvel visited the children, with his bag of money in his coattail pocket. Ellen was at work, and although she looked pale in her black dress, she looked very pretty. The goodness of the heart always shows itself in the face.

Now Dan had been thinking all day, and indeed for many previous days, that he ought to consult some mature person as to what he was to do. You must understand that Dan, notwithstanding that he was so much younger than Susan, considered himself the head of the family. He had his plans, but he wanted advice concerning them. Up to the present time, his business in trained birds had not flourished. It could not be said to have commenced, for he had not sold a bird. He had decided that Mr. Marvel would be a proper person to ask advice of, and by good luck here Mr. Marvel was.