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ad heard that they had not paid their bills, and father had said -re were two quarters owing-they came in the winter before. But at's nothing here. I don't know who do pay their bills, but taken in, ne after time, people will trust about here. I don't know how tradesen manage to live, except they don't pay their own bills. Where was ?—blackberrying-yes. Well, we were coming home through the wood-we were late, but I thought by taking a short cut through the oppice, we might manage to pass down Lime Lane, for I had been here very seldom of late, and she, poor thing, had not been able to go out walking much, so I had hardly seen her.

It had been disappointing work for a long time, going down Lime Lane. It was not once in a blue moon that I managed to hit his train, and see the bright look, and the work thrown down, for he seldom came down till late, and often not at all for days together, and to see the sad sigh, instead of the bright look, made me miserable. Well, we were taking the short cut through the coppice, when I heard voices, one loud and one soft, and the loud one said, "Will you, or will you not?" "Not if I die first," the low one said, and I knew it was Mrs. Fothergill, though I could not see her for the trees. "Now, you be off home, every man jack of you," I said to the children, "or mother will be angry. Tell her I'll be home directly." So they turned round, and I went on, not knowing why, and trembling terribly, till I came to the path. They were coming towards me.

They were so loving when I saw them last together, but they were not arm-in-arm now, and her pretty babyish face looked as if it had been struck-like, so fixed and miserable.

"If I sold my jewels," she said, "I could pay all, and have to spare."

"O! we shall want them," he said, with a chuckle. "Will you come?"

"I won't," she said, suddenly throwing up her head, and stamping her foot.

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He clenched his fist, and I cannot for the life of me tell how the words or courage came to me, but I stepped quickly up to them, and said:

"Mr. Fothergill-papa has sent me to say that he should be glad if you would settle the rent, as he wants to send in his accounts to the trustees."

"Will you tell your papa," he said, in the mildest, pleasantest manner possible, "that I will send him a cheque to-morrow, without fail."

They went on, and I followed-even now I don't know why. He looked round and saw me, and bit his nails, but I still followed. On

they went, she swinging her arms, as if unconscious, and he twirling his moustache, fiercely, and looking round. Still I kept in sight, till we were near their house, when the railway bell rang-it always rings when the train has left the last station, and gives one about five minutes to catch the train. It no sooner began to ring than off he started, as if he had been called, and ran past me down the hill, and she, with a cry, sank on the bank sitting.

I could not pass her and leave her there like that, and again words came to my lips somehow.

"Mrs. Fothergill," I said, "if you will excuse me, madam, but we have got a cow in full milk, and mamma said that if you would like to have it you might be sure it was genuine, as we have more than we want."

"Thank you," she said, looking up with far more control than I could have given her credit for. "I shall be very pleased to have a pint every morning."

She got up with a smile, and asked after Willie, who had been ailing, and we walked along together.

"And please, Mrs. Fothergill, it was not true what I said about the rent; father did not give me any message; but I

"Never mind, dear," she said, sweetly. "One often tells fibs when one is flurried, and now I think of it, will you give your father a message from me. If you will wait a moment, I will write it."

We had just come to her gate, and she made me come in while she wrote her note upstairs. I could scarcely believe I was in the same place as the drawing-room was when I was last there. They were very vulgar people the Manxes, who had let it, and their furniture was horrid; but what with flowers and ferns, and an anti-macassar here, and a bannerscreen there, and a rearrangement of everything, the room looked charming. Oh, how I hated her husband.

She soon came down with a little packet in her hand and a note, which she begged me to give papa; and would you believe it, that packet contained a real diamond brooch, worth I don't know how much, and the poor thing in her letter begged papa, as she had no friends, to be good enough to sell it for her, and take the rent out of it, and pay himself a commission, and give her the rest, if any. Papa said it would have paid all her debts twice over.

I told mamma everything, of course, and I expected to be scolded for telling so many stories, but she praised me, and said I was quite right about the milk, and that I should take it to-morrow morning, which I did in fear and trembling, for I never like seeing people after "a scene."

However, she was ill in bed, and so the next day, and so on for a week, and no better, so that I was rather surprised one morning to see a figure sitting on the bank where she sank down after her husband left her. I made no doubt who it was, though I could not see her face,

which was buried in her hands. I couldn't bear to see her like that, poor, sweet, gentle lady, and so I walked up very softly and put my hand on her shoulder, and said, "Mrs. Fothergill." She sprang up at once to her feet like a tiger, and eyed me, and then I saw it was not my poor lady, but another, some years older, about thirty, I should say, taller and handsomer, but bitter looking. Her voice was gentle enough though. "How do you know that that is my name, girl?"

"I beg pardon, I took you for Mrs. Fothergill, at No. 6."

"Then that is her," she said, half to herself, and walked away, and I took the milk and went home, feeling all-over-like.

When I came home I found papa closeted with an old gentleman and Dr. Jinks. Such a stern old gentleman he seemed when he came out, quite white, but his back as straight as an arrow. I never saw a face so full of hard, cold, anger.

Dr. Jinks got into the fly with the gentleman, and they both were driving off, when I saw the doctor say a word, and the gentleman nodded, and in another moment the Doctor got out, and told mother to put her bonnet on and come with them, and they all drove off in the direction of Lime Lane. There were tears in papa's eyes as he shut himself into his business room.

I know it was very foolish, but I did long to tell what I had seen to him or mamma. Of course, I couldn't tell it to anybody else. I felt it had all come out now, for I was certain that was Mrs. Fothergill's father, and papa looked as if he knew. But it was a pity, wasn't it, after making such a discovery to find everybody knew.

Poor Mrs. Fothergill was nearly out of her mind, mother said, when she came home, and had asked to see me, and the Doctor said she must be humoured. So I went back with mamma, and they say I saved her life, because she threw her arms round me and kissed me, and cried, oh! so terribly. She hadn't cried when she saw her papa; she seemed in a trance like, though he was very gentle with her. He went away when I came.

"We must get her away from this place directly," Doctor Jinks said to him; "but she is not strong enough to travel by rail."

The next day her father came again with such a queer kind of carriage; I forget what they called it, and the poor thing-I am sure anybody would have thought she was dead-was carried down on a mattress and laid in it, and it went off at a snail's pace. I and mother followed together a little way, crying; and Doctor Jinks rode on one side and her father on the other. It was just like a funeral.

We watched them out of sight, but they had to come back after all; and the baby was born at four o'clock next morning. Oh! it was a sad business.

Yes; they both lived.

A TALE OF PERNAMBUCO.

BY ALBERT ADOLPHE JOHN PERCIVAL HUGHES.

O LISTEN to a tale I got,

Quite fresh from Pernambuco,

A terrible tale of the man who shot,
And the cook who cooked the cuckoo.

You've heard of the tale of the albatross
And the ancient man who slew it,
And how he, to his heavy loss,
Most bitterly did rue it.

But to be compared it is certainly not
With the tale from Pernambuco,
Of that most diabolical man who shot,
And the cook who cooked the cuckoo.

Most good and lovely 'twas to see

This very bad man's garden,

When the cuckoo came and sat on a tree
Without ever asking pardon.

He cocked his tail and ducked his head,
As innocent as a baby;

And cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo said

As lustily as may be.

Regardless of its innocence,

Which was as any child,

The man most promptly took offence
And became exceeding riled.

He used a very naughty word,
And said, "Now stop that riot;
You hold your tongue, you nasty bird,
Or my gun shall make you quiet."

But the bird he did not understand,
But went on crying cuckoo,
Until no more at last could stand

That man of Pernambuco.

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