cripture-reader in Ramsgate."

"Humph!" ejaculated Denham. "Pray, may I ask what your profession is
_now_?"

"I am cashier in the office of a very intimate friend of ours--Mr
Summers."

"What! the house with which we do so much business?"

"The same," said Guy with a smile; "but tell me, uncle, will you come
and stay with us? _Do_ say you will, if it were only for a week or
two."

"I'll think of it, nephew."

Mr Denham did think of it. More than that, he went, and said he would
stay a week. He stayed a week, and found himself in such comfortable
quarters that he resolved to stay a fortnight. He did so, and then
agreed to remain a month. Finally, it became a standing joke with
Bluenose, who was a frequent visitor at the cottage kitchen, that he
(Denham) was no better than the play-actors, who were always at their
"last week but one," and never could get any farther.

But Mr Denham's health did not improve. He had imbibed so much tar and
fog and filth through his nostrils that his constitution could not
recover from the effects, and at last it began to dawn upon him that
health was of greater value than gold; that the accumulation of wealth
was not the main object for which man had been created; that there was a
future in regard to which it would be well that he should now make some
inquiries.

Here Mr Denham turned by a sort of instinct to Amy Russell, whose face
was like a beam of sunshine in Sandhill cottage, and whose labours among
the poor and the afflicted showed that she regarded life in this world
as a journey towards a better; as an opportunity of doing good; as a
ladder leading to a higher and happier sphere. In regard to this sphere
he (Denham) knew next to nothing--except, of course, intellectually.
Mr Denham turned to the right quarter for comfort, and found it.

Still the merchant's health did not improve, so his physicians
recommended a sea-voyage. At an earlier period in his career he would
as soon--sooner perhaps--have taken a balloon voyage, but sickness had
taught him wisdom. He gave in; consented to take a passage in one of
his own ships, the "Trident" (which had made several good voyages to
Australia), and ere long was ploughing over the billows of the South
Seas on his way to the antipodes. Such is life!

Wonderful coincidences are of constant occurrence in this world. It
chanced that in the same year that Mr Denham made up his mind to take a
voyage to Australia and back, Bax