er. Never had he so loved Helen as in that hour;
never had he so intimately and intensely felt her matchless worth.
The image of her unselfish, quiet, melancholy consideration for that
austere, uncaressing, unsympathizing relation, under whose shade her
young heart must have withered, seemed to him filled with a celestial
pathos. And he almost hated Varney that the cynic painter could have
talked of it with that business-like phlegm. The evening deepened; the
tranquil street grew still; the air seemed close; the solitude oppressed
him; he rose abruptly, seized his hat, and went forth slowly, and still
with a heavy heart.

As he entered Piccadilly, on the broad step of that house successively
inhabited by the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Hertford,--on the step of
that mansion up which so many footsteps light with wanton pleasure have
gayly trod, Percival's eye fell upon a wretched, squalid, ragged object,
doubled up, as it were, in that last despondency which has ceased to
beg, that has no care to steal, that has no wish to live. Percival
halted, and touched the outcast.

"What is the matter, my poor fellow? Take care; the policeman will not
suffer you to rest here. Come, cheer up, I say! There is something to
find you a better lodging!"

The silver fell unheeded on the stones. The thing of rags did not even
raise its head, but a low, broken voice muttered,--

"It be too late now; let 'em take me to prison, let 'em send me 'cross
the sea to Buttany, let 'em hang me, if they please. I be 's good for
nothin' now,--nothin'!"

Altered as the voice was, it struck Percival as familiar. He looked down
and caught a view of the drooping face. "Up, man, up!" he said cheerily.
"See, Providence sends you an old friend in need, to teach you never to
despair again."

The hearty accent, more than the words, touched and aroused the poor
creature. He rose mechanically, and a sickly, grateful smile passed over
his wasted features as he recognized St. John.

"Come! how is this? I have always understood that to keep a crossing was
a flourishing trade nowadays."

"I 'as no crossin'. I 'as sold her!" groaned Beck. "I be's good for
nothin' now but to cadge about the streets, and steal, and filch, and
hang like the rest on us! Thank you kindly, sir," and Beck pulled his
forelock, "but, please your honour, I vould rather make an ind on it!"

"Pooh, pooh! didn't I tell you when you wanted a friend to come to me?
Why did you doubt me, f