nd spread over his breast, as he lay cold and stern in his
coffin: for as he was carefully bearing the box containing the flowers
across Waterloo Place on his way home that evening, there was a cry, a
shout, the rush of wheels, and the trampling of horses; a barouche came
along Pall Mall at a furious rate, with two ladies therein clinging to
the sides, and the coachman and footman panic-stricken on the box. One
rein had broken, and the horses tore round the corner towards Regent
Street as if mad with fear.

It was a gallant act, and people said at the inquest that it saved the
ladies and the servants, but it was at the sacrifice of his own life.
For, dropping the box he was carrying, Fred Thorne, a hale strong man of
five-and-forty, dashed at the horses' heads, caught one by the bit and
held on, to be dragged fifty or sixty yards, and crushed against the
railings of one of the houses.

He stopped the horses, and was picked up by the crowd that gathered
round.

"Stop a moment, he wants to say something--he is only stunned--here, get
some water--what say, sir!"

"My--poor--darlings!"

They were Fred Thorne's last words, uttered almost with his last breath.

The shock was terrible.

Mrs Thorne took to her bed at once, and was seriously ill for weeks,
while Hazel seemed to have been changed in one moment from a merry
thoughtless girl to a saddened far-seeing woman.

For upon her the whole charge of the little household fell. There was
the nursing of the sick mother, the care and guidance of Percy, a
clever, wilful boy of sixteen, now at an expensive school, and the
management of the two little girls, Cissy and Mabel.

For the first time in her life she learned the meaning of real trouble,
and how dark the world can look at times to those who are under its
clouds.

The tears had hardly ceased to flow for the affectionate indulgent
father, when Hazel had to listen to business matters, a friend of her
father calling one morning, and asking to see her.

This was a Mr Edward Geringer, a gentleman in the same way of business
as Mr Thorne, and who had been fully in his confidence.

He was a thin, fair, keen-looking man of eight-and-thirty or forty, with
a close, tight mouth, and a quick, impressive way of speaking; his
pale-bluish eyes looking sharply at the person addressed the while. He
looked, in fact, what he was--a well-dressed clear-headed man, with one
thought--how to make money; and he found out how it wa