him in reason. Is there anything more I can do? I really am
very uneasy about the lad, and Mrs. P. and I have a tiff about it: but
that's nothing--thought I had best write to you for instructions.

"Yours truly,
"C. PLASHWITH.

"P. S.--Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been
here--has found out that the boy has been seen with a very suspicious
character: they think he has left London. Bow Street officer wants to go
after him--very expensive: so now you can decide."

Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith's letter, but of
Arthur's he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to
Catherine's children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search,
now so necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy.

A soft-hearted, soft-headed man, a confirmed valtudinarian, a
day-dreamer, who had wasted away his life in dawdling and maundering
over Simple Poetry, and sighing over his unhappy attachment; no child,
no babe, was more thoroughly helpless than Mr. Spencer.

The task of investigation devolved, therefore, on Mr. Morton, and he
went about it in a regular, plain, straightforward way. Hand-bills
were circulated, constables employed, and a lawyer, accompanied by Mr.
Spencer, despatched to the manufacturing districts: towards which the
orphans had been seen to direct their path.

CHAPTER VII.

"Give the gentle South
Yet leave to court these sails."
BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar's Bush.

"Cut your cloth, sir,
According to your calling."--Ibid.

Meanwhile the brothers were far away, and He who feeds the young ravens
made their paths pleasant to their feet. Philip had broken to Sidney
the sad news of their mother's death, and Sidney had wept with bitter
passion. But children,--what can they know of death? Their tears over
graves dry sooner than the dews. It is melancholy to compare the depth,
the endurance, the far-sighted, anxious, prayerful love of a parent,
with the inconsiderate, frail, and evanescent affection of the infant,
whose eyes the hues of the butterfly yet dazzle with delight. It was the
night of their flight, and in the open air, when Philip (his arms round
Sidney's waist) told his brother-orphan that they were motherless. And
the air was balmy, the skies filled with the effulgent presence of the
August moon; the cornfields stretched round them wide and far, and not
a leaf trembled on the beech-tree