He accepted her proposal thankfully, and it spoke well for his sincerity that he armed her against himself, his own probable entreaties or commands, by giving her a paper, desiring her to use her best judgment, and show no false mercy by letting him out till she was satisfied of his cure. He signed it, and she kept him locked in for three weeks. But he was used to confinement-that did him no harm; he was accustomed to the companionship of accusing thoughts and wretched memories. She took these things into account, and did not let them influence her; but there was one thing she did not take into account, and this was his strong, absorbing love for herself.

She brought him his meals, she swept out his room, she took care that he had candlelight, and all such comforts as their slender means would permit; but when she had done all such obvious tasks, she did not sit with him, or linger to chat, or bring the child and lay it on its father's bed, while she worked. No, nothing of this kind; when she had waited on him, she went down again.

Uzziah felt this, and he found nothing to say. Every day he thought he must and would open a conversation with her, if it was only to ask a few harmless, commonplace questions, such as, "Have you been to the shop, Hannah? Well, sit you down and tell me about it." "Got the baby a new hat, did you? Bring up the little chap and let me see him in it." He rehearsed many such questions and remarks with himself when alone; but when he heard his wife's step on the stair, and heard her turn the key, he never could utter them. She always found him silent, and every morning she made him the same apology, "Wishing you better, my poor husband, and feeling it hard I should have to take away your liberty."

"I don't feel as much better as I could wish," was often the answer. "I'm parched

And she was only able to talk with him on the matter in hand-what he thought it might be best for him to eat, and what to drink. When she had done and said all, she would turn away very quietly, almost slowly, and close and lock the door again; but then he used to hear her run down-stairs, as if it was a deep relief to get away from him.

And so it was.

At last one day he said, "Hannah, I've no longing at all upon me now for liquor, and I bless the Lord for that."

"Well, and I bless the Lord for it, too," she answered, almost cordially.

She observed that he had put on his best clothes, and brushed his hair.

"I feel as if I might go out," he said. "Only, what do you think, my poor wife? Am I fit to go alone?"

"I'll go with you," she answered; and his whole appearance changed. She could not but feel a pang of pity for him, for his face was so like what her heart had felt when she had last seen her lovely children. Her proposing of her own accord to go out with him was such a cordial, and yet he knew it was only as a guardian that she was to go. She would be near to help him out of mischief and temptation as a duty, and not a pleasure.

"And where do you want to go?" she inquired.

"Well, Hannah, first I must look for work; for what I used to earn by my ef forts for the temperance cause, I have lost now."

"Too true," she replied.

"And, second, I must go to Mr. de Berenger. He will wonder what has become of me all this time. I want to say to him what you have to hear first."

He saw then the sudden pallor which often distressed him in his wife's face, and did not know that her fear of meeting with Amias was what had brought it on, not of what he might have to say.

"If you're agreeable to it, my dear, I feel as if I had better go away from London. I might find a country place - I seem to know of several where there are not any public-houses tempting one at every turn. I could not keep us quite as well as I have done, but I would do my best."

He paused, and looked at her earnestly, and she answered what she knew was in his mind.

"Yes, Uzziah, I would go with you."

CHAPTER XXXII.

AMIAS was standing on the rug in the room where he had talked with Uzziah Dill. It was a pleasant morning; the red curtains of the windows had been partly drawn, and shafts of sunshine came in between, casting a fine glow upon the figures of an old man and an elderly lady, who sat on two comfortable chairs.

"Yes, my dear uncle is much disappointed," said Sarah. "He thinks the little girls look thin and weakly. Yes! and dear Amabel and my pretty Delia-" "Why mention them in the same breath with the others?" interrupted Amias. "My uncle, I understood, was come here to talk over his affairs, express some of his wishes as regards his granddaughters." "And dear Amabel and my pretty Delia," Sarah went on, as if she had not heard him, "have each had an offer of marriage. Yes, very natural, I am sure, and does the young men no special credit." The dark cheek of Amias mustered color, and his eyes flashed. Sir Samuel, in spite of a little depression which showed itself in his air, smiled furtively here.

"Much too rich, poor children! But when my will comes to be investigated, perhaps it may be found that I have been less regardless of the family interests than you have, and have not thrown dear John's children over just because he died before he could come home to claim them, - and produce his marriage certificate," she added, after a short pause, " which he had no reason to suppose we should ever think of asking for."

"If you please, sir," said a servant, entering," Mr. Uzziah Dill wishes to speak with you."

"I will see him in a few minutes," replied Amias. “Now, aunt," he continued, when the door was shut, "you have been giving me rather a long lecture this morning."

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"No special credit," she went on, "for anybody might see, with half an eye, what charming, desirable girls they are though, to be sure, the lovers, both in the army, had nothing at all but their pay. However, as they said to me, there's always hope of a scrimmage. War, war, that's what they all look to, what they daily pray for. But it's rather shocking to think of their dropping on their knees - whole rows of them and deliberately entreating a merciful Providence to send 'battle, and murder, and sudden death,' that they may get their promotion! Yes; but that's what, as I'm informed, they always do."

Sir Samuel sat through this speech in silence, and, as he still said nothing, Sarah spoke again.

"Some girls are far too rich," she observed, "and others far too poor. It would be much better if my dear uncle would have his six granddaughters as before. Punctilios are quite out of place in family matters; and you are so particular, Amias, about your rubbishing proofs, that now you see the consequences. The property, as my dear uncle has said, must go to those four pale-eyed, sickly girls (not the least like the family), and their fortunes will be so large, that they will be the victims of all the neediest scamps out."

"I am not so sure of that," said Amias, "if Felix is to have the charge of them, and I am to be their guardian."

"You accuse me, among other things, of meddling in the affairs of this world, of a strong wish to make it better and happier. Now, there is a poor, weak wretch of a lame cobbler down-stairs

"Yes! going to prove that my remarks were so much wasted breath."

Amias turned from his aunt to his uncle. "I say, uncle, that I feel a wish just now to see the world- at least, those few atoms of it which are held together by the body of that lame cobbler—a little better and a little happier."

"Then there's money in the wish,” said Sir Samuel, smiling rather grimly. "By how much money is the little demagogue to be made better and happier? I remember him. I heard him rant when you were at the seaside, a year or two ago."

"I think five-and-twenty pounds would satisfy me."

Sir Samuel lifted his eyebrows involuntarily, he was so much astonished at the audacity of Amias in naming so large a sum. "This comes," he thought, "of my having laid myself under an obligation to him by making him my girls' guardian."

"The poor man's case is hard, and I deeply pity him," continued Amias. "He was a reformed drunkard, and kept himself sober for years; but in a time of deep distress - an illness of his wife's, I think

he was overcome by temptation, and drank again. Now he almost despairs, and his living is lost, for of course he cannot rant, as you call it, on temperance any more."

Partly in gratitude to Amias, but more

in pity for the man, Sir Samuel took out | his purse, and, to the surprise of Sarah, gave Amias, in gold and notes, the five and twenty pounds.

Amias, thanking him, took the money and went into a little waiting-room, where he found poor Dill and his wife. Uzziah looked the shadow of his former self, and was very desponding.

Amias applauded him for his intention of leaving London, held out no hope that any more temperance lecturing was possible for him, but gave Mrs. Dill the money, and said it was a generous gift from a friend.

Mrs. Dill accepted it with beautiful and homely dignity. "It was a king's ransom to her," she said; "it would give her husband hope and courage, and that was what he mainly wanted to keep him sober."

She had money, more than this sum, lying in the hands of Mr. Bartlett, but since a certain dreadful fact had come to her knowledge, she feared the very sight of a lawyer, and had made her husband more timid than herself.

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"Then I suppose I've got to retire into private life, sir," said poor Uzziah, in desponding tone.

Amias with difficulty forbore to smile. "I am sorry for you, Dill," he began. "It's a sore blow, but a meet punishment," interrupted the poor man.

"We have taken up enough of Mr. de Berenger's time," said the wife, with gentle firmness. Amias shook hands with her, but not with her husband, and when Uz ziah saw that he was determined to say no more, he made his bow, and departed.

He and his wife went and sat down on a bench in Kensington Gardens, for Uzziah was too weak to walk all the way home without a rest, and the gardens were in their way.

The poor man was very wretched, and his wife understood his misery. He wiped his brow as he seated himself, and spoke for the first time.

"He never gave me the least hope, Hannah; he never even said I might stand forth again at some future time." She was silent.

"To think I could do good and help the cause was almost what I lived for. It was not only the applause I got, Hannah; you must not think it."

"I do not think it."

"I was buoyed up by it. It enabled me to deny myself.”

"Ay, my poor husband; but it made you forget"

Uzziah wiped his forehead again.

"Am I to have nothing to do, then, for God?"

"Ay, truly; you've got to get our living by your trade. So far as I can see, that is God's will about you just now, and that it may last his will, I daily pray."

"Then, if I am to go, let it be a long way off. There's plenty of money. Let us go where I may forget."

He spoke weakly and almost peevishly. His wife encouraged him, but from that day she recognized a change. His crime, which it seemed he had almost forgotten, was now ever present to his mind; he had supposed that in the end he should be discovered as its perpetrator, but because he believed that God had forgiven it, he had felt that he was free of it in the mean time.

He now discovered his mistake. No need to tell him to be distant and humble in his manner to his wife, or meek and silent with others; he was all this of his own accord. With a touching patience he undertook such work as he could get, and contented himself with such fare as it would procure.

Hannah Dill could find no consoling words for him; but she forbore from all reproach, and gradually, as he left more and more to her, she took the guidance of him and of their small earnings. In one thing she always yielded. He had sometimes a fit of restlessness, and would long to leave the town or village where they were. Then she would produce Sir Samuel's money, and by some cheap excursion train, and still cheaper steamer, they would go on. It was always in the same direction always north. At last, after a full year of such wandering, they found themselves at Whitby, and here the change of scene, the cordial manners of the people, and perhaps the fine air of the place, seemed at last to revive the poor man. He settled to his work with more hope, slept better, and would sometimes walk about the shore and into the country, evidently refreshed by the beauty of the scene.

Hannah Dill felt relieved, for she could not but be influenced by the deep depression she always saw in him. Gradually it passed, she scarcely knew when or how. He was very humble, very silent still; many an hour he would spend in prayer, lying on the floor of the little chamber; but at meal-times he would now sometimes converse with her, or he would whistle to the child, now grown a fine, rosy little fellow. Sometimes he would read aloud, and always he would work diligently at his calling.