CHAPTER III.'

LIFE IN LAMBETH,

It is needless to explain that there were neither myrtles nor vines about the pottery-house. Not that there was any deficiency of scent around the dwelling. A soap manufactory near obviated every charge of this kind. It had given out its odours in full power at the moment of the Le Brocqs' first approach to their new abode, and had greeted them just when they paused to admire the symbols which were erected on their pottery wall. It was by uncle Anthony's taste that the establishment bore this refined character. It was he who had mounted a huge filterer on one angle; and on another a ladle which seemed made to fish up Truth out of a well. Uncle Anthony had done much. Would he had done one thing more!-removed from the neighbourhood of the soap manufactory, or got it removed by indicting it as a nuisance. But he had lived for fifty years on good terms with this establishment, and never dreamt of hurting it. Indeed, when he had been persuaded, on rare occasions, to give himself a day's airing at Hornsey, he relished the atmosphere of his native street on his return, as the fuller's heart leaps at the sight of the dust about his mill, and the weaver's at the sound of the click-clack of his loom. Mrs. Le Brocq did not take it so easily, nor believe what she was told of the certainty that she would

enjoy the nuisance in time, as much as her neighbours. Anna felt it a sad addition to the excitements under which she had to labour from dawn till night. Every morning she was startled from sleep by the workmen knocking at the gate of the yard; and then came the peevish bell of the dustman, and then a gradual increase of street noises. If it rained, the sprinklings of white earth in the yard became mud; if the sun shone in, the dust danced thick in its beams, and she felt as if she drew it in with every breath. At her former home, little dust was to be seen, as everything was green around, except the gravelly lane; but here no efforts to keep the furniture in a seemly state availed anything. It would have been as easy to parry one of the plagues of Egypt. There was a good deal to be admired, however, when it was not boiling day at the soapery, or when the wind was south. The river, as seen from the wharf behind the pottery, was not so fine, she thought, as the channel between Jersey and France; but the bridge was very grand, and nothing could be more beautiful than her father's finely arranged stock of stone-ware. Mr. Studley, the foreman, had assured her that the process of the manufacture was in some parts very elegant; but her father would not let her see it till Aaron should be competent to the exhibition, on some holiday, or other occasion when the men should be absent. Through the stock-room, however, she was allowed to range; and her awe of London, as a place of civilization and wealth, was much increased by what she saw there ;—

such beautiful jars and pitchers, and so enormous a congregation of blacking bottles! Thither she carried her knitting, when not wanted in kitchen or parlour. She thought she must leave off knitting, as her mother could do all that was now required. Nobody seemed to wear knitted smallclothes or petticoats in London, nor even shawls. If it was really true that she must no longer make her father's and Aaron's coats, she feared she should want occupation: but it was difficult to credit that in a fine country like England the men would condescend to such womanish work as tailoring. She had no doubt she should find this to be a joke upon her, as a new comer. She had, indeed, seen a young man sitting upon a table, and doing tailor's work; but he was very small and pale, and most likely permitted to do this because he was fit for nothing else.

While deep in thought over her work, she was planning how to make her mother more comfortable than she could possibly be at present. Mrs. Le Brocq could not live without apples, and was very much discomposed at having to purchase them; and when she went to the shop, or stepped out after a fruit-woman in the street, the neighbours invariably followed to stare at her costume. The butcher had given out that the new family were preciously stingy people, eating meat only once or twice a week, which was a sin and shame in the owners of a pottery. Mr. Studley cast a look of disgust at her, the only time he had entered the house,-which happened precisely at the moment when the dinner

of lard and cabbage soup was being served up. If Mrs. Le Brocq could not be made more popular in the neighbourhood, it was to be feared that the possession of a pottery would not insure perfect happiness to the family.

How different from Studley had been another visitor who entered at a similar important point of time! "A gentleman," who did not declare his name, called to speak to Mr. Le Brocq, a few days after his arrival, and walked in, as a matter of course, without waiting to hear whether the person he sought was at home. He uttered a cry of delight at the spectacle of the soup, and kissed Mrs. Le Brocq and her daughter, in sign of being a countryman. Before he could be asked, he drew a chair, rubbed his hands, and sang a verse of a song in the French of the island, -the language which it refreshed their ears to hear. He had not done when Le Brocq came in, expecting to find a customer for his stoneware rather than his dinner.

"Ha! countryman!" cried the stranger. "Don't try to remember me. For my own sake, don't try to remember me. There's no use in looking back too far, when all is done; but I could not slink away when once I had seen the hem of your wife's Jersey petticoat. My name is Durell: there is no occasion to remind us all that you have heard it before."

Mr. Le Brocq looked grave. A farmer, of the name of Durell, had committed an assault on the King's highway, in the neighbourhood of Gorey, and had anticipated his sentence of ba

nishment by making off in a fishing-boat, within an hour of the information being laid against him. Every one had been sorry for the offender, who was known to be of a passionate temper, and to have received such provocation as would have gone far to justify him. Every one was sorry that he had precipitately given up his pretty farm, and compelled his wife and child to wander after him to another land; but Le Brocq now wished to have some evidence of the respectabi, lity of Durell, before he admitted him as a guest on terms of familiarity.

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"You should have such a love of country as mine, man, and then you would not look so cold upon me," cried Durell. If you knew how my heart longs for a word about the deep shady lanes, and those blessed little coves, where the sea comes to kiss one's feet, and slips away again! I have not seen what I call a dell any where else; and the pastures, with a green that makes one's eyes water! Heaven keep them so! And how are they?"

"Did you come to hear this sort of news?"" Le Brocq inquired.

"The devil take what I came for! that will do afterwards. Can't you tell me whether the doves coo as they used to do when the wind dropped? For the soul of me, I can't believe you are a Jerseyman! If I had not thrown open my doors wider to poor Stephen, I should have doubted my being a Jerseyman myself."

"Poor who?" inquired Le Brocq, hoping to obtain something in the form of a reference,