"It is," replied the other. I was knocked down and robbed of it last night." "Do you suppose you could recognize the party who attacked you?" The plundered man looked round and singled out the thief immediately. “There he is. He trembles, you see, sir." The examination proceeded- the robbery of the purse was stated, and the purse itself, with only a trifle of its contents abstracted, was delivered up by the thief. In a brief space of time his committal to Newgate was made out. But what is this scene which takes place? The thief, forcing his passage from the dock, as his prosecutor was about to quit the office, threw himself at his feet, and clung to his legs, impeding his further progress. "Arthur Willis!" he cried, "do you not know me, then? Has my name really escaped your recollection? Do you forget your old playmate? Look at me - look at me. I am he-! We were great friends, you know, in our boyhood. We had everything we possessed in common. You remember that, do you not?" Thus far he had run on weeping, abject, clutching the other's apparel, when the man so addressed, speaking to the magistrate, said, "Will you assist me, sir?" "Remove him, policeman," was the mandate delivered. 66 What, you do not-will not recollect me, then?" "Remove him, policeman. But the outcast saved them all further trouble. He rose from the ground. The prosecutor made his exit from the office. From that time the prisoner assumed a sullen aspect, and, avoiding his fellows in Newgate, remained apart, sundered from his last hope, his last affection. He was sentenced to seven years' transportation; but underwent his punishment at the hulks, instead of leaving the country. Not altogether destitute was he dismissed at the expiration of that long period. The chaplain,—a man of God in a stricter and better sense than a mere professional one,-struck by his history and praiseworthy behavior, made him a present of five pounds. Meanwhile, his prosecutor had been ruined by the failure of a speculation in which he had extensively embarked, had removed from house to house, always going downward in the scale of respectability as applied to residences, and was now occupying a small apartment in an obscure street in Southwark. Chance led the man released from the hulks into this street, led him to take an apartment therein with the intention of carrying on the business of shoemaking, an employment he had been taught on board his marine prison. One day, as he sat in his little shop, he saw a man issue from the opposite dwelling, and limp with faltering steps along the uneven pavement. Could it be? Had possibility no limits? The cordwainer hammered at his shoes all that day, and late into the night, and the next day, and the next the same, stringing old songs to one another so rapidly, that he did not cease to croon and sing the whole time. But the fourth day? A He did not work that morning. He did not sing. It was beautiful summer weather. man going by his door offered flowers for sale. A linnet at the adjoining house went off into an intoxicating career of song. He bought some flowers. He stepped into the street to look at the linnet. He felt his eyes moisten, and experienced a choking sensation at the throat. Returning to his apartment, and making himself as tidy as he could, he crossed the road, and knocked at the door opposite to his own. You have a person named Willis living here?" he said to the woman who appeared. Yes, what d'ye want with him?” 66 I wish to see him." "He's ill, but you can go up stairs; you can't miss the room." And in another minute, the late felon was in the presence of his late prosecutor, — the dear companion and cherished friend of his boyhood. Willis was dying; it required no experienced eye to see that. "Ah! you know me, Arthur Willis. I am Alfred Pole; look on me; see me now, as in my boyhood, nothing changed-but your dear friend still; true to you in your adversity, as he would have been in your prosperity, as he was when we were boys together -- so help him God in heaven!" The speaker fell on his face, and his sobs shook the floor of the apartment. "My first offence," he continued presently, "when deprived of your counsel, and seduced by evil companions, was my ruin. I think, I KNOW, that I should have amended, and become useful in my limited sphere to society, but society shut me out, considering that the boy who had robbed his employer, and had undergone punishment for the offence, had better be cast forth to be a thief for evermore. What necessity that I should trace in your hearing the steps by which I descended, -down-down- ever and ever down, until I attacked and robbed you." He spoke no more; the man he addressed had died while he was speaking, and a human soul was absorbed in the Infinite Spirit. THE RECRUIT. BY MRS. C. BARON WILSON. TAKE, take these flaunting streamers hence! Mother, farewell!— thy truant son Hark! 'tis the far-resounding drum, |