his breakfast, and calls to the chafing and imprisoned bird, who
coming down into a pendant gilded hoop within the cage, like a great
wedding-ring, swings in it, for his delight.

The second home is on the other side of London, near to where the busy
great north road of bygone days is silent and almost deserted, except by
wayfarers who toil along on foot. It is a poor small house, barely
and sparely furnished, but very clean; and there is even an attempt to
decorate it, shown in the homely flowers trained about the porch and in
the narrow garden. The neighbourhood in which it stands has as little of
the country to recommend it, as it has of the town. It is neither of the
town nor country. The former, like the giant in his travelling boots,
has made a stride and passed it, and has set his brick-and-mortar heel
a long way in advance; but the intermediate space between the giant's
feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and not town; and, here, among
a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day and night, and among the
brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut, and where the fences
tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow, and where a scrap or
two of hedge may yet be seen, and where the bird-catcher still comes
occasionally, though he swears every time to come no more--this second
home is to be found.'

She who inhabits it, is she who left the first in her devotion to an
outcast brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit, and
from its master's breast his solitary angel: but though his liking for
her is gone, after this ungrateful slight as he considers it; and though
he abandons her altogether in return, an old idea of her is not quite
forgotten even by him. Let her flower-garden, in which he never sets his
foot, but which is yet maintained, among all his costly alterations, as
if she had quitted it but yesterday, bear witness!

Harriet Carker has changed since then, and on her beauty there has
fallen a heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast,
all-potent as he is--the shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and the daily
struggle of a poor existence. But it is beauty still; and still a
gentle, quiet, and retiring beauty that must be sought out, for it
cannot vaunt itself; if it could, it would be what it is, no more.

Yes. This slight, small, patient figure, neatly dressed in homely
stuffs, and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues,
that have so little in common with the received