"Yes, miss; you see you want drawing lessons. Now he says, does my friend, that he would instruct you in drawing twice a week for six months, and let you see him. draw on the block occasionally, if you'll pay him with all the engravings you do in the six months."

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"Would you advise me to accept his offer?" Decidedly, miss, if you mean to go on taking lessons of me at the same time.

He

will lose by you the first three months; but unless we're both very far out, you'll make it up to him the second, for you'll know more of drawing by what he'll teach you, and more of engraving by what I shall."

"Then by that plan I make my drawings under his superintendence, and engrave them under yours? I still pay you half a crown a lesson, and I pay him nothing but the result of my work?"

"That is all, miss."

"But if I agree to this, what do you think I shall be able to earn at the end of the six months if I spend about four hours a day on the engraving?"

"About two pounds a week, perhaps, ma'am."

my

I took a few days to consider, and then decided to accept the terms offered; but, though I am not by any means of an idle disposition, or languid in the prosecution of my work, I certainly did feel so thoroughly overcome with fatigue sometimes, that I almost thought I must give my project up. I taught little pupils from nine till one; that was the easiest part of my day; the wood-engraving demanded at the least two hours a day, and the drawing no less. During August and the two following months I could work an hour before breakfast, and also in the afternoon, and the wood-engraving happily could be done by candle-light, so that I still retained time for my walk and for a little reading. I had still only the five shillings a week that I earned, and did not spend in lessons, to bestow in charity. But Anne did such wonderful things with it, that I came to think it a respectable sum. And at the end of the first and second quarters, having spent in necessary outgoings the whole of my income to within a few shillings, I was fain to take Anne's own view of the matter, and allow myself to hope that supporting her, and letting

her devote herself to the poor, was my appointed charity.

She still presided over my morning toilet, and she took me to, and fetched me from, my pupils; she also walked with me when I went shopping or took exercise: that was all. The rest of her time—that is, her morning and her evening-I gave her for the district, for her club, her lending-library, and her evening-school.

It was a great privilege, and I hope it raised the tone of my mind, to live with such a woman. Her contentment, her almost rapture in her work, were wonderful to see. She spent, I knew, at least half her wages on her charities; yet, though shabbily dressed, she was always neat, clean, and respectable in appearance; and the more she dwelt among the wretched hovels of the poor, the better and the stronger she seemed. This went on till the Christmas holidays; for I had three weeks' holidays at Christmas, and I enjoyed them quite as much as my pupils did-per haps more.

Strange to say, I was decidedly happy; I am quite sure of it. I had no society; but

then, I was not fitted to shine in society. I had no amusements; but, then, I had not a leisure hour in which I could have enjoyed them. I was absolutely so busy, that I had no time for regrets; and when I went to bed, I was too tired to lie awake long and think.

In saying that I had no amusements though, I am ungrateful. I had the amusement of Valentine's letters, and very droll these were; very boyish of course, and sometimes not flattering, but graphic and full of fun. They were not, I suppose, like the letters of a lover --at least, they were not at all like such letters as they appear in books, and I never saw but one in manuscript! Valentine, in his letters, often apologised to me for not having written so soon as he meant to have done, by acknowledging that he had forgotten, and sometimes he gave as a reason for writing that he supposed I should be uneasy if I did not hear from him. Most natural things to be said by a brother; but not very natural to be felt by a lover. I was, therefore, the more to be pardoned for not considering Valentine to be my lover, and for treating him, as I always had done, with frank affection.

Affection I certainly felt for him in no com

mon degree. I was even willing to devote my life to him, in any than the way other way which he still often proposed.

One bitterly cold day, during my holidays, I had just dined; Mrs. Bolton was gone out with her little boys, and Anne, during a brief period of sunshine, was trying on a new gown, which she and I had just finished, for my wearing. It was the first I had had since coming to London, and Anne was congratulating herself on the fit, when the servant came up and gave me a card

MR. VALENTINE MORTIMER.

"He's in the parlour, miss," said the servant, and disappeared.

A visitor a visitor from Wigfield, toowas such an unexpected thing, that I stood dumb and motionless. Anne took out my best brooch, put it on, and had smoothed my hair, before it occurred to me that I must run down to see Valentine.

"How do I look, Anne?" I exclaimed, meaning, "Am I neat and fit to go down?"

Anne pulled a tacking thread out of my new gown, smiled, and said, "Well, miss,