of paper in his hand.

"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any medicine,
you must ring the night-bell."

"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a little
boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out of their beds,
without somebody to speak for me."

The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such a
forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his face,
that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him.

"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir."

"Have you got a doctor's prescription?"

He held out his morsel of paper.

"I have got this," he said.

I took the paper from him, and looked at it.

It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked first at
the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly obscure person
in the profession. Below it was written the name of the patient for whom
the medicine had been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was
"Mrs. Brand."

The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at any
rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt.

"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked.

"Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I have
done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've pawned her
ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs, and I've taken
care of the change. Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn't my
fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but ten years old--and all the
chemists' shops are shut up!"

Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes overpowered
him, and he began to cry.

"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something more
about the lady first. Is she alone?"

"She's got her little girl with her, sir."

My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that other
little girl whom my mother had once seen.

"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next.

"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he hasn't come
back yet."

I put a last conclusive question.

"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired.

"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered.

I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have noticed
it!

Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she was
obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner, alone with
h