Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

'When he bids them good-night, as he does presently, seeing that silence falls upon them and that they wish to be left alone, he does not leave a bad impression behind him. But although he has not addressed half a dozen words to the girl, he sees with his mind's eye Bessie's bright face, and no other, as he walks through the cold air. Now, what on earth could a pretty girl like Bessie have to do with the stock of wild oats which young Mr. Million was so industriously collecting?

WITH THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR, BEGIN A NEW LIFE

When Saul Fielding left Mrs. Naldret he made his way through the narrow streets, shivering and stamping, until he came to a house, the lower portion of which was devoted to the sale of plum- and peas-pudding, and food of that description. The side door which led to the upper portion of the house was open, and Saul ascended the dark stairs until there were no more stairs to ascend, and entered a room, the low roof of which shelved in one part almost to the floor. A common lamp was alight, the flame being turned very low down, more, it is to be presumed, for the sake of economy than for safety, for there was nothing in the room of the slightest value. What little furniture there was was rickety and broken: two cane chairs, nearly bald; the few ragged pieces of cane that were left in the frames were tattered and of various lengths, and mournfully proclaimed, 'See what we have come to!' while one of the chairs was so completely decrepit, that it had lost its backbone, and had so little life left in it, that it wheezed when sat upon; a turn-up bedstead, which made a miserable pretence of being something else; a deal table, which once could flap its wings, but could do so no longer; on the table two cups, which were not of a match, but this was really of the smallest consequence, for one was chipped and one was without a handle; and a metal teapot, the surface of which was so battered, that it might be likened to the face of a worn-out prizefighter who had played second best in a hundred fierce encounters. But, common and poor as was everything in the room, everything was as clean and tidy as orderly hands could make it.

Saul Fielding turned up the light of the lamp, and the lamp spat and spluttered in the operation with a discontented air of being ill-fed; this discontent was plainly expressed in the top of the wick, which was lurid and inflamed. There were signs in the room of a woman's care, and Saul Fielding sat down upon the wheezy chair, and waited with his head resting upon his hand. He had not long to wait; the sound of light steps running up the stairs caused him to rise, and look towards the door.

'Jane!'

She nodded and kissed him, and asked him if he were hungry.

'No,' he answered; 'where have you been to?'

'Only on a little errand. Come, you must be hungry. You've had no tea, I know.'

She took the remains of a loaf, and a yellow basin containing a little dripping, from a cupboard, and cut the bread and spread the dripping solicitously. Then she pressed him to eat.

'I shall have some with you,' she said.

To please her, he forced himself to eat.

'It's very cold, Jane.'

'Very, Saul.'

She was a woman who once was very fair to look at, who was fair now, despite her poverty. She was not more than twenty-five years of age, but she looked older; there was no wedding-ring on her finger, and she was too poor for adornment of any kind about her person. There was beauty in her, however; the beauty that lies in resignation. And now, as Saul Fielding looked at her furtively, he noticed, with evident inward fear, a certain kind of sad resolution in her manner which tempered the signs of long suffering that dwelt in her face. He put his hand timidly upon her once, and said in a troubled voice.

'You have no flannel petticoat on, Jane.'

'No, Saul,' she answered cheerfully; 'I have pledged it.'

An impressive silence followed. As the darkness that fell upon Egypt could be felt, so the silence that fell upon this room spoke: with bitter, brazen tongue.

'I have been out all the afternoon,' she said presently. 'First I went to-you know where.' Her soft voice faltered, and carried the meaning of the vague words to his sense.

'And saw her?' he asked wistfully.

'Yes; she was playing on the door-step. She looked so beautiful! I-I kissed her!'

All the love that woman's heart can feel, all the tenderness of which woman's love is capable, were expressed in the tone in which she uttered these simple words. She placed her fingers on her lips, and dwelt upon the memory of the kiss with tearful eyes, with heart that ached with excess of love.

'Did I tell you that last week I tried again to get work, Saul?'

'No,' he said; 'you failed!' As if he knew for certain with what result.

'Yes; I failed,' she repeated sadly.

'I ask myself sometimes if I am a man,' exclaimed Saul, in contempt of himself, spurning himself as it were; 'if I have anything of a man's spirit left within me. Mrs. Naldret said something of that sort to me this very night-not unkindly, but with a good purpose. When I think of myself as I was many years ago, it seems to me that I am transformed. And the future! Good God! what lies in it for us?'

'I am a tie upon you, Saul.'

'A tie upon me!' he said, in a tone of wonder. 'Jane, you are my salvation! But for you I should have drifted into God knows what. You are at once my joy and my remorse.'

He took from the mantelshelf a broken piece of looking-glass, and gazed at the reflection of his face. A bold and handsome face, but with deeper lines in it than his years, which were not more than thirty-two or three, warranted. Strong passion and dissipation had left striking marks behind them, but his clear blue eyes were as yet undimmed, and shone with a lustre which denoted that there was vigour still in him. His mouth was large, and the lips were the most noticeable features in his face; they were the lips of one to whom eloquence came as a natural gift, firm, and tremulous when need be. The change that he saw in himself as he looked back to the time gone by gave point and bitterness to his next words.

'I was not like this once. When you first saw me, Jane, these marks and lines were wanting-they have come all too soon. But no one is to blame but I. I have brought it all on myself. On myself! On you! – you suffer with me, patiently, uncomplainingly. You have a greater load than I to bear; and you will not let me lighten it.'

'I will not let you, Saul! I don't understand.'

'Because every time I approach the subject, I try to approach it by a different road.'

'Ah, I know now,' she said softly.

'Jane, I ask you for the twentieth time.' He held out his hands supplicatingly to her. 'Let me do what I can to remove the shame from you. Let me do what I can to atone for my fault. As you love me, Jane, marry me!'

'As I love you, Saul, I refuse!'

He turned from her, and paced the room; she watched him with steady loving eyes, and the signs of a sad, fixed resolution deepened in her face.

'Come and sit by me, Saul.'

He obeyed her, and she drew his head upon her breast and kissed his lips.

'There's no question-no doubt of the love between us, Saul?'

'None, Jane.'

'If some chance were to part us this night, and I was never to look upon your face again-'

'Jane!'

–'And I was never to look upon your face again,' she repeated with a cheerful smile, 'I should, if I lived to be an old woman, and you to be an old man, never for one moment doubt that you loved me through all the years.'

'It is like you, Jane; your faith would not be misplaced.'

'I know it, and I know that you would be to me the same-you would believe that no other man could hold the place in my heart that you have always held.'

He took her in his arms, and said that she was his anchor; that as nothing on earth could shake her faith in him, so nothing on earth could shake his faith in her; after what she had said (although he knew it before, and would have staked his worthless life on it) could she still refuse to allow him to make her the only reparation it was in his power to make?

She waived the question for the present and said,

'We are at the lowest ebb, Saul.'

'Ay,' he answered.

'Then you must not speak of drifting,' she said tenderly; 'we have drifted low enough. Remember, Saul,' and she took his hand in hers, and looked into his eyes, 'we have not ourselves alone to think of. There is another. It only needs resolution. Come-let us talk of it Here, there is no hope.'

'There seems none, Jane; all heart has left me.'