A

DARK evening in St. James's

Street, with the carriages rattling over the stones to the theatres, and the old Clock Tower striving feebly with the fogwreaths. A dark evening round the old Palace, and along PallMall, where the lamps were keeping up a perpetual warfare with the puzzling little halos that flitted round their glass cases and were for ever trying to get inside, till, weary and beaten, they gave it up, and left the victorious lamps to shine away in the distance in two long lines of light, like the rails of a ghostly railway leading skywards, or fog-wards, or anywhere except along its own natural and proper way.

A dark evening in the streets; but light enough inside the great club-houses and palaces that stood silent sentry over the fog-bound city-bright enough when the light streamed from half-curtained windows, or burst with a hurry and a flash across the stones as a heavy door swung open, and the thick-muffled figures came down in its track, to be swallowed up quickly in the dingy fog-light.

'A cold night, child, to be in the streets.'

'Yes, sir; very cold. I can't help it; indeed I can't.' And the child shrank back in the darkness with a shudder.

'And no home?-nowhere to sleep?-no clothes, but these, on such a night?'

They are better in summer, sir, and in the day-time; but the nights are very cruel, and so long and lonely!'

'No parents-friends-to care for you?'

'I live with uncle, when he's home, sir; but he's gone two days, and has locked the door: he's all I ever knew.'

Is he coming back?'

'He never said so, sir; he beat me because I looked hungry, and then he kissed me, and smoothed my face, and called me his "little Nelly." Oh, he's very kind, sir; only when he's drinking he acts wild like, and sometimes hurts me. And after that he sent me out to beg; but when I went home again the door was locked, and the pleeceman told me to "go on;" but I said it was my uncle that I wanted; and he laughed, and said I'd never see him more. And all that night I walked and walked, and then the morning came, and I walked again. But what the pleeceman said is true, sir: uncle's never come back; and I'm so tired. I don't mind the cold when the shops are open, and the people are walking too; but when night comes, it's so black, and cold and long, and the pleeceman wakes me up so often, that it's hard to get through the night, sir, very hard.'

The girl cowered back in the corner, and drew her thin shawl about her, as if frightened at her own sad, weary voice.

The man wrote something on a card, and placed it with a coin in her hand.

"That will give you a night's lodging, child; and this is my name. The policeman will show you the house to-morrow: come

to the door, and give it to the porter, and we will go together and find your uncle. God bless you, child. Good-night!'

He turned into the portico and was gone.

A gleam of light streamed out across the pavement and into the murky street, touching the figure of the beggar-girl with ruby, and so back into the doorway, as if in haste to forget such a sight, and the clattering carriages and passers-by were all that remained for company with the lonesome child.

Bright enough inside, the prisoned light, in no hurry to be away, resting on the porter in his chair, and on the clerk by the letter-case, on the staring play

bills against the walls, and on the umbrellas ranged in ranks by the gas-stove. In no hurry to be gone, as it rested on Arthur Shaine, unbuttoning his coat and leisurely finding his way up the stairs.

He was a man at peace with all the world-a peace he found it easy and comfortable enough to keep on a fair bachelor's income, and rooms in Club Chambers. Unencumbered with extravagant tastes, and at an age when life still pretends to possess a future, he had a kind heart, almost womanly in its tenderness, and a nature so far unsuspicious as to prefer the chance of being wrong five times, if there was any possibility of the sixth attempt being right; and so he carried a kind word and an open hand into the highways and byways of life.

'Poor girl! I'll get her dressed and taken care of. Only sixteen, not a day more, I'll venture, and to be out in such weather as this! Any one come, George?' This to the boy who was waiting at the top. 'No, sir.'

'Has James brought the champagne?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Where's Mr. Jansen?'
'In his room, sir.'

'Jansen!' cried Arthur, knocking at a door at the end of the passage, and opening it at the same moment.

'Come in!' from the inside.

The room is worth a moment's pause. It is a room to appeal to the senses sensually, and to the limbs luxuriously; to banish care and thought, in favour of ease and luxury. A drowsy, dreamy room, crowded with velvet and soft fabrics fashioned into seats and carpets and hangings; hung with paintings of soft landscapes and summer suns, of browsing cattle and moist meadows, dotted here and there with drapeless figures, glowing pink amidst falling water, and under shimmering leaves; a room with silver and gilt and crystal strewn carelessly on quaintlegged tables and heavy cabinets dating from the kings of France; and where, standing on the rug, we find the owner, him whom Shaine called 'Jansen.'

A short stout man, with a tight necktie and three blazing stones in his frilled shirt-front - his square shoulders set with a small round head, bald, but for two wisps of hair that darted forwards over either ear, as if in fear of being left out of the catalogue small, sharp, twinkling eyes-thin lips that were always bent into a smile, now of a friend, now of a man to whom it would be better to owe nothing, with

'Ah, yes-always so. You will speak to these poor, and will give; and they will go and laugh behind your back, and order bifsteak and ale for supper. You are too impulsive, Arthur-and these beggars take you in-always so.' And the little man warmed himself, complacently stroking his back, as if to say, 'My poor back, you must be taken care of, for you are not a beggar, and you will not take me in.'

But you I will not dress? Surely the guests will be here.' This aloud to Arthur, who had thrown himself full-length on the sofa.

There it is again; always in the clouds,' he cried, jumping up. 'What a fellow I am.' And he dashed out of the room, disarranging the heavy curtain, which swung round to meet him, and stumbling over the door-mat in his haste afterwards.

'Jansen!' he shouted the next moment from the depths of his dressing-room, receive them like a good fellow, and tell them I won't be half a minute.' Then the door closed again with a bang, and he was plunged into the mysteries of hot water and white ties.

There was a carriage stopping at the door of Club Chambers, and ladies stepping daintily out of it and across the damp pavement into the warm haven beyond, where the solemn porter stood, door in hand, to welcome them.

Outside, a small crowd had collected, as is the wont of street life, to see the fine people of that other land flash fairy-like across the dullness of their own pauper world; and with the crowd, the policeman feed by Club Chambers to keep the outer sanctuary as select as might be amongst the lawless wretches of the pavement, to guard its well-to-do gates, and

to see that those who came to gaze upon their glories did so at a distance, respectful and remote.

But the crowd was unruly, and' the ladies so fairy-like, and the glow of light from Club Chambers SO warm, that the half-dozen wanderers were more than ever bold, taxing the policeman's powers till his patience evaporated.

'Move on now; can't yer!'
Such the formula.

'How can we move on with you standing in the way?' cried a boy, in a shrill treble, ducking adroitly to escape the official

answer.

Meanwhile Club Chambers, following the customs of the giants of old and of the story-books, had swallowed up the fairies, and closed their doors with a soft, pleasing thud, as if complacently to shut out that lower and more humble world they knew not of, and so left the policeman and the crowd to move on to brighter and more prolonged contests at the adjoining theatre.

All but one-a huddled mass, that might be life, or dirt, or anything without a name, that cowered down, and hid away, courting the darkness as a friend, and always peering out-a childish face, a piteous, anxious, eager little face, furrowed, and flecked by mud-splashes, and with hair that twined and twisted everywhere, uncared for, rough, and tangled; and eyes that bore a mute reproach to all these others, clad so fine, whilst I-flesh, sister! tender, shrinking flesh as yours, am here!'

A timid child, so young it seemed but yesterday the breath was breathed that gave it life; so young, so near its Giver, that it was a sin on that great city's strength to let so small a thing lie in the cold and fog. A helpless,

Jealous! I jealous of Relf!' And he laughed so loud and merrily that they gathered round him, and begged to join in the joke. But the joke somehow fell away, and to their laughter there succeeded a little pause; a gap that seemed a forecast of coming troubles; and then the door opened, and George announced Mrs. Gawton and Mr. Relf.

A woman entered, under the usual height, with no show of dress; only a pale grey silk, tight fitting to a figure, if anything, too full for beauty, with just so much swansdown round the throat as softened the almost stern plainness of the silk, a feathery fringe circling with jealous tenderness the first glow of flesh that peeped above—so fair, so white, as though its dainty tissue shrank from the rudeness of the lamplight that fell and flickered on so rare a playmate, veiling its coyness with grey shadows wantoning among the dimples that would catch them in their dance; a wondrous piece of living softness, twin sister to a crystal warmed to life. A face to rivet thought, to love, to dream of, worship, haunt one's days to come, and then to dread; a face of woman's softness at her softest,

fair as the fairest, rounded so richly as to carry love-thoughts in its every outline; dark hair that lay about the temples; eyes, showered on by lashes seldom raised, but then jealous to show their treasures fully open, so that the space below seemed one bright gleam of soft grey dreamy light, that sparkled, spoke, and faded with an answer snatched from the inmost soul. So far all woman, love, and softness; then below-the mouth chilling the warmth that cradled it, hard lined, creasing the skin in furrows that showed sharp and angry against the fairness of the facea mouth that summed up all the woman in 'I will!'

To men, Adelaide Gawton was an admiration, at a distance-an enthusiasm that cooled and chilled as the acquaintance ripened-a fascination that strangely held its own amongst them, but ever crept away outside the danger-limit that lay hidden, scarce defined, but lay beneath her fairest moods. To women she was hateful-hated; their queen against themselves; a shell that bruised their pretty feathers, for ever tearing off their mysteries of smiles and looks, those dainty nets that make a woman all she is not, more than all she is, to men reading their cherished secrets, and flaunting them for arms against their owners. No wonder that they spoke, and thought, and looked against her.

Yet she was good, too good, this woman in her friendship when she found it, and would lend her softest kindness to the ones she cared for, and stand beside them true as the steel that girt the warriors of old days; and it was evil work to thwart her bravery when she armed herself to battle for her friends.

He who came with her was a tall, good-looking man of some