would send orders to have His own commandment broken."

Mr. Mordacks was excited, and the landlord saw no cause for it. "What makes you carry on like this?" he said; "it was only last night we was talking in the tap-room of getting a subscription up, downright liberal. I said I was good for a crown, and take it out of the tick they owes me. And when you come to think of these hard times--"

"Take that, and then tell me if you find them softer." Suiting the action to the word, the universal factor did something omitted on his card in the list of his comprehensive functions. As the fat host turned away, to rub his hands, with a phosphoric feeling of his future generosity, a set of highly energetic toes, prefixed with the toughest York leather, and tingling for exercise, made him their example. The landlord flew up among his own pots and glasses, his head struck the ceiling, which declined too long a taste of him, and anon a silvery ring announced his return to his own timbers.

"Accept that neighborly subscription, my dear friend, and acknowledge its promptitude," said Mr. Mordacks; "and now be quick about your orders, peradventure a second flight might be less agreeable. Now don't show any airs; you have been well treated, and should be thankful for the facilities you have to offer. I know a poor man without any legs at all, who would be only too glad if he could do what you have done."

"Then his taste must be a queer one," the landlord replied, as he illustrated sadly the discovery reserved for a riper age--that human fingers have attained their present flexibility, form, and skill by habit of assuaging, for some millions of ages, the woes of the human body.

"Now don't waste my time like that," cried Mordacks; and seeing him draw near again, his host became right active. "Benevolence must be inculcated," continued the factor, following strictly in pursuit. "I have done you a world of good, my dear friend; and reflection will compel you to heap every blessing on me."

"I don't know about that," replied the landlord. It is certain, however, that this exhibition of philanthropic vigor had a fine effect. In five minutes all the resources of the house were at the disposal of this rapid agent, who gave his orders right and left, clapped down a bag of cash, and took it up again, and said, "Now just you mind my horse, twice as well as you mind your fellow- creatures. Take a leg of mutton out, and set it roasting. Have your biggest bed hot for a lot of frozen children. By the Lord, if you don't look alive, I'll have you up for murder." As he spoke, a stout fish-woman came in from the quay; and he beckoned to her, and took her with him.

"You can't come in," said a little weak voice, when Mr. Mordacks, having knocked in vain, began to prise open the cottage door. "Mother is so poorly; and you mustn't think of coming in. Oh, whatever shall I do, if you won't stop when I tell you?"

"Where are all the rest of you? Oh, in the kitchen, are they? You poor little atomy, how many of you are dead?"

"None of us dead, sir; without it is the baby;" here Geraldine burst into a wailing storm of tears. "I gave them every bit," she sobbed--"every bit, sir, but the rush-lights; and them they wouldn't eat, sir, or I never would have touched them. But mother is gone off her head, and baby wouldn't eat it."

"You are a little heroine," said Mordacks, looking at her--the pinched face, and the hollow eyes, and the tottering blue legs of her. "You are greater than a queen. No queen forgets herself in that way."

"Please, sir, no; I ate almost a box of rush-lights, and they were only done last night. Oh, if baby would have took to them!"

"Hot bread and milk in this bottle; pour it out; feed her first, Molly," Mr. Mordacks ordered. "The world can't spare such girls as this. Oh, you won't eat first! Very well; then the others shall not have a morsel till your mouth is full. And they seem to want it bad enough. Where is the dead baby?"

In the kitchen, where now they stood, not a spark of fire was lingering, but some wood-ash still retained a feeble memory of warmth; and three little children (blest with small advance from babyhood) were huddling around, with hands, and faces, and sharp grimy knees poking in for lukewarm corners; while two rather senior young Carroways were lying fast asleep, with a jack-towel over them. But Tommy was not there; that gallant Tommy, who had ridden all the way to Filey after dark, and brought his poor father to the fatal place.

Mordacks, with his short, bitter-sweet smile, considered all these little ones. They were not beautiful, nor even pretty; one of them was too literally a chip of the old block, for he had reproduced his dear father's scar; and every one of them wanted a "wash and brush up," as well as a warming and sound victualling. Corruptio optimi pessima. These children had always been so highly scrubbed, that the great molecular author of existence, dirt, resumed parental sway, with tenfold power of attachment and protection, the moment soap and flannel ceased their wicked usurpation.

"Please, sir, I couldn't keep them clean, I couldn't," cried Geraldine, choking, both with bread and milk, and tears. "I had Tommy to feed through the coal-cellar door; and all the bits of victuals in the house to hunt up; and it did get so dark, and it was so cold. I am frightened to think of what mother will say for my burning up all of her brushes, and the baskets. But please, sir, little Cissy was a-freezing at the nose."

The three little children at the grate were peeping back over the pits in their shoulders, half frightened at the tall, strange man, and half ready to toddle to him for protection; while the two on the floor sat up and stared, and opened their mouths for their sister's bread and milk. Then Jerry flew to them, and squatted on the stones, and very nearly choked them with her spoon and basin.

"Molly, take two in your apron, and be off," said the factor to the stout fish-woman--who was simply full of staring, and of crying out "Oh lor!"--"pop them into the hot bed at once; they want warmth first, and victuals by-and-by. Our wonderful little maid wants food most. I will come after you with the other three. But I must see my little queen fill her own stomach first."

"But, please, sir, won't you let our Tommy out first?" cried Jerry, as the strong woman lapped up the two youngest in her woolsey apron and ran off with them. "He has been so good, and he was too proud to cry so soon as ever he found out that mother couldn't hear him. And I gave him the most to eat of anybody else, because of him being the biggest, sir. It was all as black as ink, going under the door; but Tommy never minded."

"Wonderful merit! While you were eating tallow! Show me the coal- cellar, and out he comes. But why don't you speak of your poor mother, child?"

The child, who had been so brave, and clever, self-denying, laborious, and noble, avoided his eyes, and began to lick her spoon, as if she had had enough, starving though she was. She glanced up at the ceiling, and then suddenly withdrew her eyes, and the blue lids trembled over them. Mordacks saw that it was childhood's dread of death. "Show me where little Tommy is," he said; "we must not be too hard upon you, my dear. But what made your mother lock you up, and carry on so?"

"I don't know at all, sir," said Geraldine.

"Now don't tell a story," answered Mr. Mordacks. "You were not meant for lies; and you know all about it. I shall just go away if you tell stories."

"Then all I know is this," cried Jerry, running up to him, and desperately clutching at his riding coat; "the very night dear father was put into the pit-hole--oh, hoo, oh, hoo, oh, hoo!"

"Now we can't stop for that," said the general factor, as he took her up and kissed her, and the tears, which had vainly tried to stop, ran out of young eyes upon well-seasoned cheeks; "you have been a wonder; I am like a father to you. You must tell me quickly, or else how can I cure it? We will let Tommy out then, and try to save your mother."

"Mother was sitting in the window, sir," said the child, trying strongly to command herself, "and I was to one side of her, and Tommy to the other, and none of us was saying anything. And then there came a bad, wicked face against the window, and the man said, 'What was it you said to-day, ma'am?' And mother stood up--she was quite right then--and she opened the window, and she looked right at him, and she said, 'I spoke the truth, John Cadman. Between you and your God it rests.' And the man said, 'You shut your black mouth up, or you and your brats shall all go the same way. Mind one thing--you've had your warning.' Then mother fell away, for she was just worn out; and she lay upon the floor, and she kept on moaning, 'There is no God! there is no God!' after all she have taught us to say our prayers to. And there was nothing for baby to draw ever since."

For once in his life Mr. Mordacks held his tongue; and his face, which was generally fiercer than his mind, was now far behind it in ferocity. He thought within himself, "Well, I am come to something, to have let such things be going on in a matter which pertains to my office--pigeon-hole 100! This comes of false delicacy, my stumbling-block perpetually! No more of that. Now for action."

Geraldine looked up at him, and said, "Oh, please, sir." And then she ran off, to show the way toward little Tommy.

The coal-cellar flew open before the foot of Mordacks; but no Tommy appeared, till his sister ran in. The poor little fellow was quite dazzled with the light; and the grime on his cheeks made the inrush of fresh air come like wasps to him. "Now, Tommy, you be good," said Geraldine; "trouble enough has been made about you."

The boy put out his under lip, and blinked with great amazement. After such a quantity of darkness and starvation, to be told to be good was a little too bad. His sense of right and wrong became fluid with confusion; he saw no sign of anything to eat; and the loud howl of an injured heart began to issue from the coaly rampart of neglected teeth.

"Quite right, my boy," Mr. Mordacks said. "You have had a bad