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

'Where is she now?' asked Saul, thinking of those he loved at home.

'Bessie! Bessie!' cried Beaver faintly. 'Where are you? O my God! if I could live my life over again!'

Saul thought of George's Bessie as he asked, 'Where do you come from? What part do you belong to?'

It was a long time before he received an answer, and then the words crept up to him, faint and low, through the darkness, as though the speaker's strength were waning fast.

'From London-from Westminster.'

'From Westminster!' echoed Saul, and Beaver's face appeared to his imagination.

'I must tell you,' gasped the dying man; 'I must tell you before I die. You may be saved, and you will take my message home.'

'I will, if I am spared,' replied Saul, in a voice which had no hope in it.

'I have been a bad son and a bad father. My name is not Beaver-it is Sparrow, and my father, if he is alive, lives in Westminster.'

'Old Ben Sparrow, the grocer!' cried Saul, in amazement 'I know him! I saw him a few weeks before last Christmas. You are Bessie Sparrow's father; I thought your face was familiar to me.'

'Bad son! bad father!' muttered the man. 'O my God! the tree is sinking! the branch is giving way! Tell me, quickly, for mercy's sake. My daughter-Bessie-she is alive, then? Tell me of her.'

'She was well when I saw her,' replied Saul, with a groan, thinking of George and his lost hopes. 'She has grown into a beautiful woman.'

'Thank God! If you ever see her again, tell her of me-ask my father to forgive me. Take the love of a dying man to them. I have gold about me-it is theirs. Say that I intended to come home, and ask forgiveness, but it has been denied me. God has punished me! I am sinking! – '

A cry of agony followed, and the wind took it up, and carried it over the hills. Then all was hushed, and the erring son and father spoke no more.

Saul offered up a prayer for Bessie's father, and waited sadly for his time to come.

As the night waned, the fierce wind grew softer, and sighed and moaned, repentant of the desolation it had caused. What a long, long night it was! But at length the morning's light appeared, and then Saul, looking down, saw that he and David's little daughter were the only ones left. Stronger grew the light, until day had fairly dawned. As Saul looked over the white expanse, he felt that there was no hope for him, and his mind began to wander. Long-forgotten incidents of his childhood came to him; he saw his father and mother, long since dead; he saw a brother who had died when he himself was a child; he saw Jane as she was when he first met her, as she was on that sad night when she told him of the duty that lay before him; he saw George and the lights on Westminster-bridge. All these visions rose for him out of the snow. And fields and flowers came, and he wandered among them hand in hand with Jane, as they had done on one happy holiday. It did not seem strange to him that there was no colour in any of these things; it caused no wonder in his mind that all these loved ones and the fields and flowers, perfect in form and shape, were colourless, were white and pure as the snow which stretched around him on every side. They were dear memories all of them; emblems of purity. And in that dread time he grew old; every hour was a year. But in the midst of all the terror of the time he pressed David's little daughter closer and closer to his breast, and committed their souls to God. So that day passed, and the night; and the sun rose in splendour. The white hills blushed, like maidens surprised. With wild eyes and fainting soul, Saul looked around; suddenly a flush of joy spread over his face. Upon a distant mount, stood Jane. 'Come!' he cried. And as Jane walked over the snow hills towards him, he waited and waited until she was close to him; then sinking in her arms, he fell asleep.

PART III

I HAVE COME TO RETURN YOU SOMETHING

On the afternoon of the day on which the Queen of the South (with George Naldret in it, as was supposed) sailed out of the Mersey for the southern seas, young Mr. Million, with a small bouquet of choice flowers in his hand, made his appearance in the old grocer's shop. Ben Sparrow, who was sitting behind his counter, jumped up when the young brewer entered, and rubbed his hands and smirked, and comported himself in every way as if a superior being had honoured him with his presence. Young Mr. Million smiled pleasantly, and without the slightest condescension. The cordiality of his manner was perfect.

'Quite a gentleman,' thought old Ben; 'every inch a gentleman!'

Said young Mr. Million: 'As I was passing your way, I thought I would drop in to see how you and your granddaughter are.'

'It's very kind and thoughtful of you, sir,' replied old Ben Sparrow. 'Of course, we're a bit upset at George's going. Everything is at sixes and sevens, and will be, I daresay, for a few days. Bessie's inside'-with a jerk of his head in the direction of the parlour-'she's very sad and low, poor dear.'

'We mustn't let her mope, Mr. Sparrow,' remarked young Mr. Million, striking up a partnership at once with the old grocer.

'No, sir,' assented Ben; 'we mustn't let her mope; it ain't good for the young-nor for the old, either. But it's natural she should grieve a bit. You see, sir,' he said confidentially, 'George is the only sweetheart Bessie's ever had. She ain't like some girls, chopping and changing, as if there's no meaning in what they do.'

'We must brighten her up, Mr. Sparrow. It wouldn't be a bad thing, if you were to take her for a drive in the country, one fine day. The fresh air would do her good.'

'It would do her good, sir. But I couldn't leave the shop. Business is dreadfully dull, and I can't afford to lose a chance of taking a few shillings-though, with the way things are cut down, there's very little profit got nowadays. Some things almost go for what they cost. Sugar, for instance. I don't believe I get a ha'penny a-pound out of it.'

Young Mr. Million expressed his sympathy, and said it ought to be looked to. He would speak to his father, who was a 'friend of the working-man, you know.'

'I don't know how to thank you, sir,' said Ben gratefully. 'Indeed, I haven't thanked you yet for the kindness you-'

'I don't want to be thanked,' interrupted young Mr. Million vivaciously. 'I hate to be thanked! The fact is, Mr. Sparrow, I am an idle young dog, and it will always give me pleasure to do you any little service in my power. I will go in, and say How do you do? to Miss Sparrow, if you will allow me.'

'Allow you, sir!' exclaimed Ben. 'You're always welcome here.'

'I brought this little bunch of flowers for her. Flowers are scarce now, and the sight of them freshens one up. Although, Mr. Sparrow, your granddaughter is a brighter flower than any in this bunch!'

'That she is, sir; that she is,' cried Ben, in delight; adding to himself, under his breath, 'Every inch a gentleman! His kindness to George and me is a-maz-ing-A-MAZ-ING!'

The idle young dog, entering the parlour, found Bessie very pale and very unhappy. She was unhappy because of the manner of her parting from George last night; unhappy and utterly miserable because of the poisoned dagger which had been planted in her heart.

'I was passing through Covent garden,' said the idle young dog, in gentle tones, thinking how pretty Bessie looked even in her sorrow, 'and seeing these flowers, I thought you would do me the pleasure to accept them.'

Bessie thanked him, and took them listlessly from his hand. Tottie, who was playing at 'shop' in a corner of the room, weighing sand in paper scales, and disposing of it to imaginary customers as the best fourpenny-ha'penny moist (is this ever done in reality, I wonder!), came forward to see and smell the flowers. The idle young dog seized upon Tottie as a pretext for taking a seat, and, lifting the child on his knee, allowed her to play with his watch-chain, and opened his watch for her, and put it to her ear, so that she might hear it tick-a performance of which she would never have tired. His manner towards Bessie was very considerate and gentle, and she had every reason to be grateful to him, for he had been a good friend to her grandfather and her lover. Certainly he was one of the pleasantest gentlemen in the world, and he won Tottie's heart by giving her a shilling-the newest he could find in his pocket. Tottie immediately slipped off his knee, and went to her corner to brighten the coin with sand; after the fashion of old Ben Sparrow, who often polished up a farthing with sand until he could see his face in it, and gave it to Tottie as a golden sovereign. Tottie valued it quite as much as she would have done if it had been the purest gold.

The idle young dog did not stay very long; he was no bungler at this sort of idling, and he knew the value of leaving a good impression behind him. So, after a quarter of an hour's pleasant chat, he shook hands with Bessie, and as he stood smiling at her, wishing her good-day, with her hand in his, the door suddenly opened, and George Naldret appeared.

His face was white and haggard, and there was a wild grief in his eyes. The agony through which he had passed on the previous night seemed to have made him old in a few hours. He stood there silent, looking at Bessie and young Mr. Million, and at their clasped hands. It was but for a moment, for Bessie, with a startled cry-a cry that had in it pain and horror at the misery in his face-had taken her hand from young Mr. Million's palm; it was but for a moment, but the new expression that overspread George's face like an evil cloud was the expression of a man who had utterly lost all faith and belief in purity and goodness: and had thus lost sight of Heaven.

Bessie divined its meaning, and gave a gasp of agony, but did not speak. Not so, young Mr. Million.

'Good Heavens!' he cried, with a guilty look which he could not hide from George's keen gaze. 'George, what has happened?'

George looked at young Mr. Million's outstretched hand, and rejected it disdainfully and with absolute contempt. Then looked at the flowers on the table-hothouse flowers he knew they were-then into Bessie's face, which seemed as if it were carved out of gray-white stone, so fixed did it grow in his gaze-then at the earrings in her ears: and a bitter, bitter smile came to his lips-a smile it was pity to see there.

'These are pretty flowers,' he said, raising them from the table; in the intensity of his passion his fingers closed upon the blooming things, and in a moment more he would have crushed them-but he restrained himself in time, and let them drop from his strongly-veined hand. 'I beg pardon,' he said, 'they are not mine. Even if they belong to you-which they do, of course-I can have no claim on them now.'

He addressed himself to Bessie, but she did not answer him. She had never seen in his face what she saw now, and she knew that it was the doom of her love and his.

'I have come to return you something,' he said, and took from his breast a pretty silk purse. It was hung round his neck by a piece of black silk cord, and he did not disengage it readily. It almost seemed as if it wished not to be taken from its resting-place.

As he held it in his hand, he knew that his life's happiness was in it, and that he was about to relinquish it. And as he held it, there came to Bessie's mind the words he had spoken only the night before: 'See here, heart's-treasure,' he had said, 'here is the purse you worked for me, round my neck. It shall never leave me-it rests upon my heart. The pretty little beads! How I love them! I shall kiss every piece of gold I put in it, and shall think I am kissing you, as I do now, dear, dearest, best!'

'Take it,' George said now.

She held out her hand mechanically, and as George touched her cold fingers he shivered. Both knew what this giving and taking meant. It meant that all was over between them.

Old Ben Sparrow had come into the room, and had witnessed the scene in quiet amazement; he did not see his way to the remotest understanding of what had passed. But he saw Bessie's suffering, and he moved to her side. When the purse was in her hand he touched her, but she repulsed him gently. Some sense of what was due to herself in the presence of young Mr. Million came to her, and her womanly pride at George's rejection of her in the presence of another man came to her also, and gave her strength for a while.

George's hand was on the door, when young Mr. Million, who was deeply mortified at George's manner towards himself, and who at the same time thought it would be a gallant move to champion Bessie's cause, laid his hand on George's sleeve, and said:

'Stay; you owe me an explanation.'

'Hands off!' cried George, in a dangerous tone, and a fierce gleam in his eyes. 'Hands off, you sneaking dog! I owe you an explanation, do I? I will give it to you when we are alone. Think what kind of explanation it will be when I tell you beforehand that you are a false, lying hound! Take care of yourself when next we meet.'