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A lady (Mrs. Chadwick), who had a little girl by the hand, caught Jabez as they fell, and putting his hand in her daughter’s, bade her take care of him—she was perhaps a year or two older than he,—whilst she raised the poor young woman’s head, and applied a smelling-bottle to her nose.

Strange parting, strange meeting! How close the founts of sweet and bitter waters lie! How often separate streams of life meet and part again; some to meet and blend in after years, some to meet never more!

Another week, and Lord Wilton’s Lancashire volunteer regiment had a man the less, the line had a man the more. Private Thomas Hulme had exchanged.

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THE song of the human throstle was heard no more floating across the batting-frame out of the window of its cage, in the dreary yard on the banks of the Irk. The swish of the wands might be heard when other sounds were low, but no more snatches of melody flowed in between.

Kind-hearted Mrs. Chadwick had not been content to leave poor Bessy at the breeches-maker’s when her swoon was over; but, seeing that the girl continued in a dazed kind of stupor, sent to the adjoining “Sun Inn” for cold brandy-and-water, to stimulate the dormant mind. Bess drank, half unconsciously, and Mrs. Chadwick, leaving her little daughter Ellen to amuse astonished Jabez, waited patiently until the young woman could collect her ideas, and not only tell where she lived, but prepare to walk home.