and they want my assistance and advice."

"Private theatricals!—that's playing at being actors and actresses, isn't it, Miss Harriet?"

"Oh! yes. Such capital fun!"

"For the people who come to see you as well?" asked Mattie, guessing by intuition where the shoe must pinch.

"To be sure," responded Harriet; "they wouldn't come if they did not like, my dear; and the change will do me good, and I think I'll go."

Mattie detected a heightened colour in Harriet's cheek.

"You will see Mr. Darcy there?"

"Well—perhaps I shall," said Harriet; "and I have a right to think about him now, or let him think about me, if he will. Mattie, you don't mind me going?"

"Mind!—why have I a right to stop you?"

"No; only I shall leave you all alone with that wearisome old man."

"He'll not weary me. Old friends never do."

"That sounds like a reproach, but you don't mean it, Mattie," said Harriet; "and, after all, I shall not be very long away. I shall take the train from London Bridge, and be there and back by eight o'clock."

Harriet hurried away to dress for her expedition; she came down in a flutter of high spirits, a very different being from the despondent, lackadaisical girl of a few weeks since. She had made up her mind to begin life and love afresh; uncertainty was over with her, and she was as gay and bright as the sunshine. But hers was a nature fit only for sunshine—the best and most loveable of girls when the shadows of every-day life were not cast on her track.

"By eight o'clock, Mattie; good-bye, my dear. Any advice?" she asked, pausing, with a saucy look about her mouth.

"Yes. Don't fall too deeply in love with Mr. Darcy, before you are sure that he is falling in love with you!"

"I can bring him to my feet with a look," she said; "bring him home here with a chain round his neck, like an amiable terrier."

"Let me have an opportunity of admiring your choice soon—we're all in the dark at present."

"Yes, father and mother too, until poor Sid," suddenly becoming grave, "breaks the seal of that letter it gave me grey hairs to write. Upon my word, Mattie, I found two in my head when I had finished it. I was so dreadfully shocked!"

"Well, the troubles are over."

"I think so—I hope so. Good-bye, my dear. Tell father where I have gone, if he should look in to-night. Home very early!"

She fluttered away, pausing to look in at the window and laugh through at Mattie once more.

"Perhaps it was as well she gave Sidney up," Mattie thought; "for she has been happier since, and all her dear bright looks are back again. What a wonderful man this Mr. Darcy must be! How I should like to see my darling's choice—the man that she thinks good enough for her! He must be a very good man, too; for with all her weakness, my Harriet despises deceit in any form, and would only love that which was honourable and true. But, then, why didn't she love Sidney Hinchford more; that's what puzzles me so dreadfully!"

She clutched her elbows with her hands, and bent herself into a Mother Bunch-like figure in the seat behind the counter, and went off into dream-land. Strange dream-land, belonging to the border-country of the mists lying between the present and the future. A land of things beyond the present, and yet which could never appertain to any future, map it as she might in the brain that went to work so busily. Figures flitted before her of Harriet and Mr. Darcy—of Sidney Hinchford in his desolation, so strange a contrast to the happiness which he had sought—of herself passing from one to the other and endeavouring to do good and make others happy, the one ambition of this generous little heart. And her sanguine nature wound up the story—if it were a story—with the general happiness of all her characters, just as we finish a story, if we wish to please our readers and win their patronage. Even Mr. Wesden would sink his suspicions in the deep water, and be the grave-faced, but kind-hearted patron again, in that border country wherein her thoughts were wandering.

Mr. Hinchford came home early to give her a lesson in backgammon, and was sadly disappointed to find Mattie on full duty in the shop that evening. He wandered about the shop himself for a while, and then went up-stairs early to bed, discontented with his lonely position in society; and his place was taken by Ann Packet, who had got "the creeps," and had a craving for "company." Ann Packet's ankles were very bad again, and it was dull work mourning over their decadence in the kitchen, with no one to pity her condition, or promise to call upon her, when she was carried to "St. Tummas's." Even she went to bed early also; for the customers came in frequently, and kept Mattie's attention employed, and it was scarcely worth while sitting in a draught on the shop steps, for the chance of getting in a word now and then, not to mention the probability of Mr. Wesden turning up, and scolding her for coming into the shop at all, an act he had never allowed in his time.

At eight o'clock, Mattie was left alone to superintend business; the supper tray for her and Harriet was left upon the parlour table by Ann Packet; in a few minutes Harriet would be back again.

At half-past eight, Mattie went to the door to watch her coming up the street, a habit with nervous people who would expedite the arrival of the loved one by these means. The action reminded her of Mr. Hinchford, when Sidney was late, and when a few rain drops were blown towards her by a restless wind abroad that night, the remembrance of waiting for Sidney Hinchford startled her. "Just such a night as this when we sat up for him, and he came home at last, so wild and stern—when we had almost given up the hope of coming home at all—what a strange coincidence!" thought Mattie.

When the rain came suddenly and heavily down, the coincidence was more remarkable; and when the clock scored nine, then half-past, then ten, it was the old suspense again.

"What nonsense!" thought Mattie; "she's stopping up for the rain. It is not very late, and I am only fanciful as usual. Nothing can be wrong—it's not likely!"

Those customers who strayed in still, wondered why she looked so often at the clock, and stared so vacantly at them when they expressed their verdict on the weather; and the policeman on duty outside observed her frequent visits to the door, and her wild gaze down the street towards the Borough. Yes, the old story over again—an absent friend, an anxious watcher, a night of wind and rain in Suffolk Street. The boy came to close the shop as usual, the door was shut en regle, and now it was Harriet's time to come back, rain or no rain, mystery or no mystery with her, and end the story à la Sidney Hinchford.

Mattie consulted a Bradshaw from the window, and found that the New Cross trains ran as late as twelve o'clock to London; this relieved her; Harriet was only waiting for the rain to clear up after all. But even midnight dragged its way towards her; and then the time passed in which she should have returned, and still no Harriet.

At one o'clock Mattie went to the door and looked out; the pavement was glistening yet, but the rain had abated, and the clouds were breaking up overhead. There had been nothing to stop her—even if Mattie had believed for a moment that Harriet would have stayed away for the rain. When she gave her up—when it was close on two o'clock—the stars were shining brightly again, although the air felt damp and cold.

"She'll never come back any more!" moaned Mattie; "she has met with danger—I am sure of it! She has come to harm, and I am powerless to help her. I should not feel like this, if something had not happened!"

"Two," struck the clock of St. Georges, Southwark; in the stillness of the streets it echoed towards her, and sounded like a death-bell. Mattie covered her face with her hands, and prayed silently for help, for one away from home. Then she sprung up again, piled some more coals