house is just here, sir"—and so saying, she led the way into Bath Street, at the corner of St. Luke's, and Ned, half-helplessly, followed; for though the brandy had dispelled the sickness, it seemed to have given a wolvish strength to his two days' hunger.

A younger female, tawdrily clad, but possessing features of sufficient power to attract Ned's especial gaze, was the only apparent occupant of the low habitation into which the elderly woman led the way. Breakfast was speedily prepared, in a somewhat humble mode, but Ned was too hungry to be delicate. The younger woman was soon engaged so freely and familiarly in conversation with the youth, as to venture a mirthful observation on his good appetite. Ned's heart glowed too warmly with the fitful delight of having found the half-crown and the means of a breakfast, to permit him to cultivate secrecy. He told it outright—the fact that he had fasted two days, and found the half-crown but half an hour before on the pavement. What will not the tongue tell, when the heart has been suddenly and unexpectedly unbondaged, though it be but temporarily, from deep-during sorrow?

And then, of course, that confession led to others, and the whole story of Ned's life and parentage, of his sickness and harsh treatment, and of his sufferings and deprivations, till that moment, were unfolded. And then came the formidable question—What did he now intend to do?—and it was one that brought back the full sense of his misery, for his half-crown was reduced already to a shilling; and he knew not what must become of him when that was spent—unless he stood in the streets to beg!

The evil moment that was to seal Ned's ruin was come. The elderly female at a glance given her by the younger, which the youth's misery prevented his observing, threw on her shawl, and went out.—

She returned—but it was after two hours had passed; and Ned Wilcom, who, when he entered London, believed himself heir to a gentleman's fortune and rank, had become the slave of a prostitute, and had pledged himself to take lessons from her in the practice of dishonesty. That very afternoon, he entered on his guilty profession: she hung on his arm, and as they entered a crowded thoroughfare she taught him to purloin, successively, a handkerchief, a book, and a watch, from the pockets of passengers.

The perfect security with which his first thefts were accomplished, and the galling remembrance of his past indignities, added to the new fascination above mentioned, stifled the reproaches of Ned Wilcom's conscience, when the hour of reflection came. He advanced in the downward path, until he became a daring burglar, and a skilful adept at swindling, under the name of card-playing, in addition to his more petty practice on pockets. Some idea of his son's fate, at length reached the brutal and sordid mind of Wilcom the elder. He commissioned a friend, two or three times, on his London journies, to make strict inquiry as to the accuracy of the reports concerning Ned. The youth avoided the search as much as possible, but could not prevent the truth from reaching his native town.

The catastrophe approached in another year. The papers contained an account of Ned's apprehension for a series of daring robberies: his father's acquaintances boldly and honestly reprehended his unparental cruelty; and though the Mammon-worshipping wretch was unmoved for some time, at length he dashed up to town to "see what all the noise was about," as he said. He arrived soon enough to see his son at the bar as a degraded criminal; and before he had gazed upon him for more than five minutes, heard him sentenced to transportation for life! Ned was immediately reconducted to his cell, while his father fell, senseless, in the Court; and though he was taken home to Leeds the following week, it was to be a helpless, doting paralytic, and a proverb to the end of his life.

LONDON 'VENTURE;

OR,
THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN.

It was in the year '39, a little before the "Dog-cart Nuisance," as it used to be called, was abolished in London, that Ingram Wilson had some curious thoughts as he stood looking at a very old and interesting dog, in one of the by-streets of the Borough.—Ingram Wilson, it ought to have been first said, was a young man who had forsaken an engagement on a thriving newspaper in an opulent agricultural district, and had "come up to London," partly through a slight disagreement with his former patron, but chiefly through a vivid persuasion, that London was the only true starting point for "a man of genius," a title to which young Ingram laid claim. Now, this claim had never been questioned by any one in the country, and Ingram thought every one would as readily acknowledge it in the metropolis. How could Ingram Wilson help thinking so, when every body had asked him, for three years, "why he did not go to London, and make his fortune?" But, good-lack! when Ingram arrived in London, and had stared at all the lions for three days, he began to feel himself in a desert, even amidst thousands. He knew nobody, and nobody knew him. He stept into two or three newspaper offices, stationers' shops, and booksellers' little warehouses, asking questions about an engagement; but people looked at him so suspiciously, that he grew afraid of asking further. He looked at the Times, and the Herald, and the Chronicle every morning, in one coffee-house or other—walked to this place and that—or wrote letters of application, in answer to advertisements, but all was in vain: two months fled entirely, and he had not received a single hour's employ, or earned one farthing in London; and he was now reduced to his last sovereign!

Feeling the necessity of an instant resort to the strictest and most prudential economy, he quitted his lodgings, and found one, (a beggarly bed, a chair, and broken table, in a fifth floor,) at eighteen-pence a week. All day he was out, and sometimes dined on threepenn'orth of boiled beef and potatoes, and sometimes he didn't: however, he contrived to make the sovereign last one more month, for he still found no employ. And now he was come to selling or pawning—what he had never been driven to before, in his life. His books none of the pawn-brokers would have: they were an article that could be turned to no account, if not redeemed. So Ingram pawned his watch; but for so small a sum, that though he was still more economical, he could only stretch another month on the "lent money," as he called it, little supposing he would never see the watch again. And then went extra articles of clothing, till he could go no farther. And when six months were gone, part of his books were gone likewise; but they were sold at comparatively waste-paper price at the second-hand booksellers.

It was then, at the expiration of six months' trial of London, without having found one hour's employ, and when he had reduced his clothes till he looked "shabby," and had not half-a-dozen books left that would fetch him the value of another week's subsistence at the book-stalls;—it was then that young Ingram Wilson had "some curious thoughts as he stood looking at a very old and interesting dog, in one of the by-streets of the Borough."

Ingram had been much disgusted with every dog-cart he had seen before; for he was driven to moralise, almost by necessity, as he wandered about from street to street; and he had made many a notch in his mind about costermongers riding on the front of their dog-carts in a morning, "four-in-hand," and all in a row, yelping as they galloped under the lash of the whip; and how much they must resemble Esquimaux