t flickered in those few last words and in that feeble
smile. He smiled when she spoke of Jesus. Yes; she clung to these as
the drowning man clings to the handful of water-reeds which he clutches
in his despair. But where was the happy evidence of genuine repentance
and saving faith? Ah, miserable death-bed! No bright light shone from
it. No glow, caught from a coming glory, rested on those marble
features. Yet how beautiful was that youthful form, even though defaced
by the brand of sin! How gloriously beautiful it might have been as the
body of humiliation, hereafter to be fashioned like unto Christ's
glorious body, had a holy, loving soul dwelt therein in its tabernacle
days on earth? Then an early death would have been an early glory, and
the house of clay, beautiful with God's adornments, would only have been
taken down in life's morning to be rebuilt on a nobler model in the
paradise of God.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

"OULD CROW," THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

"Knives to grind!--scissors to grind!--tools to grind!--umbrels to
mend!"

These words were being uttered in a prolonged nasal tone by an old grey-
haired man of a rather comical cast of countenance in one of the streets
in the outskirts of the town of Bolton. It was about a week after the
sad death of Frank Oldfield that we come upon him. Certainly this
approach to the town could not be said to be prepossessing. The houses,
straggling up the side of a hill, were low and sombre, being built of a
greyish stone, which gave them a dull and haggard appearance. Stone was
everywhere, giving a cold, comfortless look to the dwellings. Stone-
paved roads, stone curbs, stone pathways--except here and there, where
coal-dust and clay formed a hard and solid footway, occasionally
hollowed out by exceptional wear into puddles which looked like gigantic
inkstands. High stone slabs also, standing upright, and clamped
together by huge iron bolts, served instead of palings and hedges, and
inflicted a melancholy, prison-like look on the whole neighbourhood.

It was up this street that the old knife-grinder was slowly propelling
his apparatus, which was fitted to two large light wheels. A very neat
and comprehensive apparatus it was. There was the well-poised
grindstone, with its fly-wheel attached; a very bright oil-can, and pipe
for dropping water on to the stone; various little nooks and
compartments for holding tools, rivets, wire, etcetera. Everything was
in