den to you—I'll take her off your hands tomorrow. But I don't think she can walk—we must look for a coach."

This they had no great difficulty in finding and handing her into it, Mr. Simpson still keeping the child in his arms, they proceeded to Wood Street; whilst Mr. Wetherall was so bewildered, and the current of his ideas so changed, that he almost forgot his own misfortunes and the dread he had entertained of meeting his family. Besides, the presenting himself accompanied by the two strangers under circumstances that would necessarily turn attention from himself, was very different to going home alone to be the subject of scrutiny and wonder.

The moment the coach stopped at the door, Mrs. Wetherall, Mr. Lyon, and Susan, rushed into the passage—the first expecting to see him brought home ill—the two last expecting something much worse.

"My dear Wetherall, how you have frightened us!" cried his wife. "Mr. Lyon was just going off to the office in search of you."

"Never mind me!" answered Mr. Wetherall, "but see what you can do for this poor woman."

"Whose life your husband has been for-