fogs of
London, and want change of air."

"Place before me that desk. I will read William Mainwaring's letters
again and again, till from every shadow in the past a voice comes forth,
'The child of your rival, your betrayer, your undoer, stands between the
daylight and your son!'"

CHAPTER XV. VARIETIES.

Leaving the guilty pair to concert their schemes and indulge their
atrocious hopes, we accompany Percival to the hovel occupied by Becky
Carruthers.

On following Beck into the room she rented, Percival was greatly
surprised to find, seated comfortably on the only chair to be seen,
no less a person than the worthy Mrs. Mivers. This good lady in her
spinster days had earned her own bread by hard work. She had captivated
Mr. Mivers when but a simple housemaid in the service of one of his
relations. And while this humble condition in her earlier life
may account for much in her language and manners which is nowadays
inconsonant with the breeding and education that characterize the
wives of opulent tradesmen, so perhaps the remembrance of it made her
unusually susceptible to the duties of charity. For there is no class of
society more prone to pity and relieve the poor than females in domestic
service; and this virtue Mrs. Mivers had not laid aside, as many do, as
soon as she was in a condition to practise it with effect. Mrs. Mivers
blushed scarlet on being detected in her visit of kindness, and hastened
to excuse herself by the information that she belonged to a society of
ladies for "The Bettering the Condition of the Poor," and that having
just been informed of Mrs. Becky's destitute state, she had looked in to
recommend her--a ventilator!

"It is quite shocking to see how little the poor attends to the proper
wentilating their houses. No wonder there's so much typus about!" said
Mrs. Mivers. "And for one-and-sixpence we can introduce a stream of
h-air that goes up the chimbly, and carries away all that it finds!".

"I 'umbly thank you, marm," said the poor bundle of rags that went by
the name of "Becky," as with some difficulty she contrived to stand in
the presence of the benevolent visitor; "but I am much afeard that the
h-air will make the rheumatiz very rumpatious!"

"On the contrary, on the contrary," said Mrs. Mivers, triumphantly; and
she proceeded philosophically to explain that all the fevers, aches,
pains, and physical ills that harass the poor arise from the want of
an air-trap in the chimney