checking her advance in that quarter. | real beauty, and fell out of winder? Well, This is the first time that China and she belonged of my fam'ly some time Great Britain have been drawn together to resist the most dangerous antagonist of both, and it may be hoped that the result will eventuate in a new element of security to both powers.

thirty years he had carried on his business | Only Jezebel's silk gown and gold neckat the corner shop without feminine as- chains made her no friends in Ladd's Lane. sistance, but now here was an alien, from It is possible that the superior gentility of whence none could say, suddenly intro- a hat much decorated with ostrich feathers duced to preside over decayed furniture further aggravated the curious susceptiand musty carpets. To the matrons there bilities of the daughters of Eve. They was, however, soon a gentle satisfaction opined that the new-comer's extravagance derived from Bob Kewney's subjugation. "would be the ruin of that poor Bob, it It became apparent that the intrepid hero would; " yet as time went on it seemed of many a street brawl was himself at last rather the other way, and Jezebel's black subject to an arbitrary sway. The showy curls and sharp wits attracted many new young person with greasy black curls and customers to the shop. Bob Kewney had long gold earrings was distinctly domi- certainly never carried on so brisk a busineering. Her elderly husband cringed ness in his bachelor days. and muttered in her presence. Gone were the loud and blatant speeches with the rough and ready handling of any argumentative customer. A more diplomatic rule, with the arts of persuasion dominant, had superseded the policy of the past. Certainly Mr. Kewney's submissive attitude was utterly at variance with any foregone experience of husbands in the Lane, where masculine boots administered sound reproof, or the poker was called into requisition to vanquish the spirit of any over-bold partner.

Whether by love or fear, it seemed that the stalwart young Jezebel ruled her spouse to his own good, trampling upon all such habits as she deemed disadvantageous with a very decided heel.

Not only was Mr. Kewney constrained from spending Saturday evening, or indeed any other evening, at the Hoop and Toy with the convivial associates of early days, but it was likewise observed that he had now a limited control of ready money. In former days he could be safely relied on to lend any friend in need small sums from half a crown to ten shillings. Now it was observed that "Bob, he's growed precious stingy."

On Sundays this doughty hero must perforce rise up early to wash and shave himself, giving due care to hair-oil and a clean shirt, instead of spending the best part of the day in bed. A weekly rite of this nature had perchance a far-off likeness to a religious ceremonial.

If so be the Sunday was fine, Mrs. Kewney took her partner abroad for an airing to Hampstead or Regent's Park, according to the length of the days.

It was clear to all purchasers that Jezebel knew how to drive a bargain, though she endeavored to disguise her own firmness of purpose by an exuberant flow of banter. By much cajolery she softened the edges of rapacity, and a customer was often persuaded to believe that she was doing him a personal kindness in suffering him to become the possessor of any desired article. If quite unable to auctioneer the beauty or utility of some worthless thing under discussion, Jezebel would lend a halo of romance to its time-worn aspect, rarely failing to convince and ensnare her customer by her sentimental coloring.

"Now you may declare as that sofa have seen better days. I shouldn't wonder neither if it belonged of a dook once. Them things is like old horses, they gets a trick of coming down in life. Think of all the little lords and ladies as have sat on it, with white lace frocks and blue sashes a playing with their ma's and pa's coronites."

Here Jezebel paused and eyed the purchaser sideways to see if the coronets were an effective shot.

Apparently these were unknown baubles to Jeremiah Smith, who feebly intimated that there was some infirmity about the limbs of the couch.

"Lame of one leg, you say! Then may be it have got pairylized, which is a aristocratic complaint.' Then Jezebel softly dusted the sofa with her apron, remarking with gentle blandishment:

"Look you here, Jeremiah, it's mahogany and real leather, leastways what's left of it. 'Tain't none of your deal rubbish covered with prickly horsehair or common 'merican cloth."

"But there don't seem no springs in it," said the man, testing it with a horny, worksoiled hand. Jezebel laughed derisively and tossed her long earrings about.

"You can't expect the insides of things to go on working forever. Bless yer, it's only the extry-best quality insides that

lasts longer than the outsides. Look at your sick wife whose heart you've broke of. She ain't got much spring left in her, I know. You say as fifteen bob is too much. Can't spare it, can't you, and you earning thirty-five shillings a week? You are a nice one to begrudge a sofa to that poor suffering creature who has worked of herself to a shadder all along of your unsteady ways. Go along!"

Then the shame-faced costermonger declared that ten shillings was all he possessed.

"Well, we won't make no words about the five bob. Let 'em stand over. When you've sold your barrer quite clean I'll come and fetch 'em."

And so Mr. Jeremiah Smith was booked the purchaser of the worthless sofa with decrepit legs, and Jezebel, clutching his last half-sovereign tightly, was less profusely sympathetic regarding the sick wife.

PART II.

were not skinny, weird atoms of humanity. It seemed to her that a baby was even a pretty and engaging creature when not carried regularly to a gin palace or suffered to wallow in a gutter.

And so, at a very early stage of its existence, Jezebel's baby girl was a surprising revelation of infancy to the Lane. The ladies of the Lane, it must be understood, passed a good deal of their time at street corners, looking on at, or criticising other people's affairs.

The Kewney baby was no shrunken piece of humanity, bloodless and sickly, with the preternaturally old face all were accustomed to. It did not, like the other children here, give the lie to happier evolutionary theories, and point to retrogressive probabilities.

The little Desdemona, which highsounding name had taken Mrs. Jezebel's fancy after a visit to the play, was as lovely as any divine infant dreamt of by poet or painter. She might have dropped from the clouds a perfect cherub in her early days. Bob Kewney himself had sandy hair of a dull shade, but nature's beneficent touch had burnished the child's curly locks to purest gold. Jezebel had large, bright eyes, dark and bold, but the baby's soft orbs were of a rich and velvety brown, gentle and appealing as a fawn's.

Two years passed by without any extraordinary_revolution of sin and dirt in Blossom Grove. Sanitary inspectors came and smelt and departed. Policemen paraded systematically and got maimed and killed occasionally. Lady visitors and street missionaries sought out converts, and made them, frequently to their own satisfaction. But too often the last stage The almighty mother had dowered this of the converted man or woman was worse product of the slums with a rare beauty than the first, and the devout and pious of limb and feature, which might even workers had but plastered hidden sores, have been highly prized in a patrician and whitened a sepulchre of rottenness. home. It seems that now and again, as Political philanthropists did now and if in defiance of all law and order, nature again call attention to the state of Blossom can and does create such exquisite forms Grove, but it not being a desirable site for to puzzle the thinker, and controvert public buildings, the majority turned a every theory of what ought to be. It was listless gaze on its degradation. For after no small matter to marvel at, that a baby all there is little benevolence not actuated should thrive and grow more lovely day by self-interest. The voice of the regen- by day in the impure surroundings of the erator cries in the wilderness where the Grove. But tribute must duly be paid to landlord foresees no ultimate benefit to Jezebel's perceptions. The young mother himself. passed by the advice and example of exLadd's Lane was happily on the out-perienced matrons who had reared large skirts of this festering mass of living creatures where rookeries and dens abounded. At the end of this street, which abutted on a main thoroughfare, there flowed a wholesome stream of fairly sound humanity. And this partial glimpse of a purer life beyond the precincts of the Grove was not without its influence on Jezebel.

She began to observe other people's babies from her window, before the arrival of her own, and it became apparent to her that outside Blossom Grove all children

families of rickety offspring. The moral of narrow-chested, bandy-legged sons, and pale-faced, heavy-eyed daughters did not adorn the tale of their maternity. Regardless of the offence given to these worthy dames, she sought the advice of an eccentric young doctor who had elected to practise amongst the poor of this dis

trict.

The principles he set forth were in fact a doctrine of regeneration to these wretched people, could they only have been made to understand that attention to

beyond it there were better things than | lady" compared to the rest. And so the he had ever known. I do not dare to say child budded and blossomed to a fair girlthat such thoughts took any clear or defi- hood. nite form in his mind, for such minds hardly formulate thought; but a shadowy shame visited him if a foul oath escaped him in the child's presence, and day by day he stood further aloof from his old comrades.

One of the child's favorite haunts was the recess behind the shop, where Bob doctored the weakly articles of furniture.

PART III.

WHEN Desdemona was about seventeen Jezebel became watchful. For some months past it became evident that young men sought an entrance to the shop on most trivial pretexts. Jezebel gathered that the intention of such purchasers of trifles was chiefly to gaze at the girl who sat with her sewing beside her, or flitted in and out of the workshop on household thoughts intent. Mrs. Kewney had in the course of years put on a considerable amount of flesh, and had supplemented nature's failing hand with an exemplary constancy to her original coloring. The massive erection of black plaits, and the marvellously bright complexion, were palpably artificial claims to notice. The effect of these borrowed charms was but to set the fair flower of Desdemona's beauty to greater advantage. Her delicate features and soft brown eyes made her appear like some rare exotic sheltering beneath the care of a gorgeous peony.

It was a large space, with uneven flooring and many angles and corners for hiding. It was full of tools, blocks of wood, glue-pots, stuffing for seats, bits of chintz and old leather, and had a carpenter's But the girl herself, as she tranquilly bench in one corner. It was dirty and read or worked at her mother's side, was untidy always, but the picturesque confu- unconscious of the admiration she excited, sion was attractive to a child. To little and the little gifts from time to time be Desdemona's active imagination it was a stowed upon her by young men, and the cave of magic, where she saw daily trans- valentines and Christmas cards which formations. And here also was a long came anonymously in shoals only awakcracked mirror, picked up for a trifle at ened a childlike astonishment because some sale, which was kept specially for people were all at once so kind. Desdethe little one's amusement. Before this mona had really no thought of lovers — glass she would pirouette and dance, bow the result of her exclusion from companand gesticulate with most wonderful grav-ionship. That the better-class young men ity, arrayed in the finery she loved. By of the district were willing "to go walking turns she called herself a queen, an angel, with her" would have conveyed small or a lady. Her father, with his short meaning to her. Yet already the son of black pipe in his mouth and a dirty cap the prosperous proprietor of the Hoop and pushed back, would stare in amazement Toy had resolved that Desdemona was at such antics. His own imaginative fac-worthy of courtship. He had been a ulties were limited, and the boundless steward on an ocean steamer, and was fancies of his child were a never-ending newly returned from his long travels, and puzzle.

Desdemona had no playmates. The precocious cunning brats of the slums found no comrade in the dainty little maid who wore a clean pinafore and white socks. Thus, in a measure, she escaped the contamination of coarse minds, and though the sentiments of her parents could scarcely be called refined, yet a veil of decency disguised their natural manners and speech in the child's presence. Desdemona herself as she grew older seemed to deserve the opprobrium hurled at her by the Lane. She was verily "a little

the delicate, flower-like charms of his young neighbor had riveted his attention. Abel Perkins, having visited many lands and seen many women of varying color and feature, held himself no mean critic of feminine beauty. Yet beyond the rejoinder of a shy yes or no from Desdemona, he had not received any flattering return to his advances. He came and looked hard at her, and went away, without any apparent reason to her as yet.

"Whatever is that young Perkins about?" said Jezebel to her husband one night, out of the girl's hearing.

"If he