dn't expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had
lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest
failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of
reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus
exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker
shrunk back into his dust-shovel, and affected to be very assiduous in
his work.

Before the day's work was ended, however, little Jem again had a
glimpse of the prize which had escaped him on the previous occasion.
He instantly darted, hands and head foremost, into the mass of cinders
and rubbish, and brought up a black mass of half-burnt parchment,
entwined with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged an
oval frame of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its
glass, but half covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstacies
at the prize. Even the white catskins paled before it. In all
probability some of the men would have taken it from him, "to try
and find the owner," but for the presence and interference of his
friends Peg Dotting and old Doubleyear, whose great age, even among
the present company, gave them a certain position of respect and
consideration. So all the rest now went their way, leaving the three
to examine and speculate on the prize.

These Dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker's cheque
for a considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Merries &
Farquhar, in 1847. But bankers' cheques, or gold and silver articles,
are the least valuable of their ingredients. Among other things, a
variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their chief value, however,
is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are used
in the clay of the bricks, both for the red and gray stacks. Ashes
are also used as fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which
could not be burned in that position without them. The ashes burn
away, and keep the bricks open. Enormous quantities are used. In
the brickfields at Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the
brickmakers alone will frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen
thousand chaldrons of this cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke, or
coke-dust, affects the market at times as a rival; but fine coal, or
coal-dust, never, because it would spoil the bricks.

As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally--before his
promotion--a chimney-sweeper, it may be on