excellently pressed, they had retained their color and their shape, even to the roots and leaves. I put them aside, and tried to recall no more pictures that they suggested to me. It was late when I went up to bed: I had my portfolio in my hand. The corner door was open. Why could they not keep that door shut? I resolved to lock it and to carry the key up to Sophia. In the meantime, I pushed it open, and went in. It was only eleven o'clock, there was plenty of time before he should come back. A sudden impulse seized me, and I went stealthily in. There was light enough in his parlor for me to make my way across the bed-room. The lamp was turned low, the fire gave out rather a fitful glow. His chair was by the table, standing as he had left it; a half burned cigar lay on the ash-stand on the table, a book half-closed was beside it. A note, torn open carelessly, lay on it. The envelope had the initials N. E. on it; the address was in a woman's hand.

I took a handful of my flowers, and shut them in the book; put another lump of coal on the fire, smoothed out the table-cover, which was drawn awry, straightened the rug, and put the footstool before the chair, then went away.

The next morning, about nine o'clock, I had to go into the other house, to ease Sophia's mind about the condition of a window-shade in the upper hall. It had been reported to her in a damaged condition. She could not sleep for thinking of it. She would not take the word of the servants about it; I must go and look at it myself. I rarely went into this hall; it gave me rather an uncomfortable feeling, and I dreaded meeting any of the lodgers, who always eyed me with more in

terest than I liked. As I got near Mr. Conyngham's door I caught sight of some one standing in it, and the figure of Buttons in front, again, of that. All that I could do was to step back behind a wardrobe, which hid me from sight in an angle of the hall. Buttons was a little waif whom I had found in the children's

ward at the hospital several years before. He was at least fifteen now, but he looked barely nine. He had a tiny, well-made figure, and a tiny, acute face. I had persuaded Sophia to get him a suit of brown clothes with brass buttons, and to take him into her service. It was a very good investment; he never outgrew his clothes. He was quite useful, and a distinguished ornament to the establishment. The apron that he wore when about his menial work was so absurdly little, it looked as if it had been made of a pocket handkerchief, but it came below his knees. His intelligence seemed preternatural because of his size. His accent was Southern, with flowers of Hibernian eloquence engrafted. Mr. Conyngham was saying to him:

"I want to see the person who keeps the house. Will you go and say so to her?"

"She's ill, sah, can't see nobody; much oblige, sah; very sorry, sah."

66 I am sorry, too. You are sure it is impossible?" "Sartain sure, sah. She ain't see nobody for this month and more. She's quite an old lady, she is, and she's got the rheumatism very bad."

"What's her name? I think I have forgotten it." "Her name, sah? Missatkins, sah."

"Sacketts? Miss Sacketts, did you say?"

"Yessalı, Missacketts, sah. That's what her name is.” Buttons made dreadful work with people's names;

he made no account of a syllable or two, more or less; it had been quite a hindrance to his usefulness as a hall boy, but I blessed him for it now, and remembered with relief that he habitually deprived Sophia of the last two letters of her name.

"Sacketts, Miss Sacketts?"
"Yes, sah."

"And who else lives in this house? Can you tell me any of their names?"

"In this house, sah?"

"Yes, in this house. On the floor below, who is there?"

"There's an old lady, sah; she have a son, sah. They very nice people, sah, they have live with Miss Sacketts a long while."

"And here, on this floor?"

"There be two ladies, sah; they have the back rooms, like you have the front. They be maiding ladies; they come last year, they did."

"Are they-young ladies, at all, either of them?"

"Oh, no, sah," and Buttons grinned a little. "They be quite maiding; they be settled, both o' 'em. And the floor above, there's Miss Graham, sah. She's got some children, sah. Miss Graham she's a very little lady; she's got black eyes and speaks up sharp. She makes 'em all stand round, she does. Mr. Graham's very nice gentleman. He don't say much 'bout things no way. And up-stairs o' all that, there's where the help sleeps, and where Miss Sacketts has her room, and one gentleman lodger who don't take no meals. I do his blackin' for him, though, and he pays me very handsome."

"And there's no one else in this house?"

66

'Nobody, sah, in this house, but what I ha' been tellin' you."

"Very well; that is all." And Mr. Conyngham turned back into his room and shut his door.

Christmas was approaching; for two days before it, he was away. On Christmas eve I broke my resolution again, and made his room bright with some holly, a spray or two of mistletoe and a glass of fresh flowers. I did not know that he would come back, but late that night he came. On Christmas Day he went out early to church; he crossed the street just as I was coming out the door, when there was scarcely light enough to see. For the rest of the day, he was shut up in his room. He had a great many calls from gentlemen, who took advantage of a leisure day, but he did not see any of them. There was no lack of flowers and daintilydone-up packages; Buttons was a busy man that day. I heard Mary say to one of the other servants, that his meals had come down almost untouched. In the even

ing, I heard him walking up and down his rooms, up and down, for an hour together. It had been a raw, cheerless day, and the evening had closed in with mist and rain. The wound had begun to smart again. Who does not pity the homeless man, to whom these days of festival are torture? The world cannot supply the want. Nothing but little arms around his neck, a tender hand in his, the blaze of his own hearth, can make the earthly side of Christmas fair to him. If all are sorry for such a man, how much more the one whose hand has dealt the wound; the one whose misery it has been to make his life a blank. I was glad when Chrismas Day was over, with the thoughts it brought to him and

me.

TWO

CHAPTER XXX.

CAP AND APRON.

The thirst that from the soul deth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of love's nectar sip,

I would not change for thine."

Ben Jonson.

WO weeks after Christmas Day, he went away again (there was nothing else that marked the lapse of time to me that winter). The time of his return was indefinite. He left word that his letters were to be kept for him, that his agent would call from time to time to get them, and to make the payment for his rooms, which were to be kept in order, ready for him to occupy at any time. From the papers, I learned he was in Canada. I suppose all the world learned it from that or other sources. There was a cessation of cards and invitations. Buttons had slack times, and but for the inflation of his mind, might have returned to the knives and boots. But having been Mr. Conyngham's gentleman, he refused to decline upon that occupation, and became a little pert and troublesome in his idleness.

Sophia was improving slowly; if the foggy, moist, January weather had not been against her, the doctor thought she might have been down-stairs by this time. Several weeks passed-three, I think it was. The house seemed silent and dead to me. I went about my