appy and thankful."

"I don't know what," returned Harriet coldly.

"But your husband, your home, your long, free days?"

The other laughed peevishly. Ida turned her head away for a moment; she
was irritated by this wretched humour, and, as had often been the case
of late, found it difficult to restrain some rather trenchant remark.

"It may sound strange," she said, with a smile, "but I think I should
be very willing to endure bad health for a position something like
yours."

Harriet laughed again, and still more unpleasantly.

Later in the evening Harriet went to call upon her friend Mrs. Sprowl.
Something of an amusing kind seemed to be going forward in front of the
house. On drawing near and pressing into the crowd of loitering people,
she beheld a spectacle familiar to her, and one which brought a smile
to her face. A man of wretched appearance, in vile semblance of
clothing which barely clung together about him, was standing on his
head upon the pavement, and, in that attitude, drawling out what was
meant for a song, while those around made merry and indulged in
practical jokes at his expense. One such put a sudden end to the
exhibition. A young ragamuffin drew near with a handful of rich mud,
and carefully cast it right into the singer's inverted mouth. The man
was on his feet in an instant, and pursuing the assailant, who,
however, succeeded in escaping down an alley hard by. Returning, the
man went from one to another in the crowd, holding out his hand.
Harriet passed on into the bar.

"Slimy's up to his larks to-night," exclaimed Mrs. Sprowl, with a
laugh, as she welcomed her visitor in the bar-parlour. "He'll be losin'
his sweet temper just now, see if he don't, an' then one o' them chaps
'll get a bash i' the eye."

"I always like to see him singing on his head," said Harriet, who
seemed at once thoroughly at her ease in the atmosphere of beer and
pipes.

"It's funny, ain't it? And 'ow's the world been a-usin' you, Harriet?
Seen anything more o' that affectionate friend o' yourn?"

This was said with a grin, and a significant wink.

"Have you found out anything about her?" asked Harriet eagerly.

"Why yes, I have; somethin' as 'll amuse you. It's just as I thought."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, Bella, was in 'ere th' other night, so I says to her, 'Bella,' I
says, 'didn't you never hear of a girl called Ida Starr?' I says.
'Course I did,' she says. 'One o' the 'igh an' 'aughty lot, an' she
li