ise of her charities--no one to tell where
she resided, but Hill, the old rat-catcher? We proceeded through the
prettily-built, but gangrened-looking, cottages located in Thistle
Grove, once called Brompton Heath, (or Marsh, we forget which,) until
the sounds of traffic reminded us that we were in the Fulham road.
Presently the sharp voice of a starling, just above us, attracted our
attention.

"Poor Tom!" said the bird--"Tom!--poor Tom!"

The old rat-catcher invited us to enter. He is a man of powerful frame,
with a massive head, fringed round with an abundance of gray hair, with
deep well-set eyes, and a quiet smile. Two sharp, bitter-looking,
wiry-haired terriers began smelling, casting their sly eyes upwards, to
see if we feared them or were friendly to their advances, and, after a
moment or two, seemed sufficiently satisfied with the scrutiny to
warrant their wagging their short stumpy tails in rude welcome. The room
was hung round with cages of the songbirds of England--some content with
their captivity, others restless, and passing to and fro in front of the
wires, eager for escape. Strong inclosures, containing both rats and
ferrets, were ranged along the sides of the small room; the latter,
long, yellow, pink-eyed, and pink-nosed creatures, lithe as a willow
wand, courting notice; while the rats, on the contrary, moved their
whiskers in defiance, and, with bright, black, determined eyes, sat
lumped up in the distant corners of their dens, ready 'to die game,' if
die they must. Gay-colored finches, the gold and the green, graced the
window in little brown bob cages; while mice of all colors, from the
burnt sienna-colored dormouse, who was more than half asleep within the
skin of an apple which it had scooped out, to the matronly white mouse,
who was sitting composedly amid a progeny of thirteen young ones,
attracted groups of little gazers, every now and then dispersed by the
larger terrier, who ran out amongst them, snarling and threatening, but
doing them no harm. "Come in, old chap; that will do, old fellow," said
his master, adding, "I would not keep a dog that would hurt any thing
but a _varmint_."

"Oh, oh! Nell's old house," he replied to our inquiries; "Nell Gwynne's
house at Sandy End, where runs the little river they deepened into a
canal--the stream I mean that divides Chelsea from Fulham--Sandford
Manor House! Ay, that I do, and I'd match it against any house in the
county for rats!--terrible plac