than Johnny, and proportionably five years larger, the borrowed habiliments, though much contributing to cleanliness of appearance, were by no means calculated to show off the symmetry of his form. When, therefore, he returned to the breakfast-room in charge of his bodyguard, the remarkable figure he presented, and the excessive gravity of his small face, buried in the collar of the jacket, caused Pierce to laugh heartily.

There," said Mrs. Daniels, her features beaming with honest pride, "that looks something like; now don't it, Sir?"

"Yes," said Pierce; "but I am sure I don't know what. Now, Johnny, I dare say you are ready for your breakfast; so let us begin."

Johnny needed no second invitation, but set to work with an earnestness which promised soon to fill up the discrepancy between him and his outer garments. First the cake was the sole mistress of his affections-then the rival allurements of the eggs and bacon

swayed his heart, and filled his stomach. Mrs. Daniels simpered benignly; and Pierce hanked Providence for having placed it in his power to perform so gratifying an act of charity.

When the breakfast things were removed, Mrs. Daniels suggested the advisability of conducting Johnny to the kitchen, that he might lose no time in making the acquaintance of her own son. She hoped if Mr. More had any objection to the young gentleman's associating with his inferiors, he would express himself accordingly; and, without waiting for Pierce's answer, took the occasion to pass a few select encomiums on the notified respectability of the name and family of the Daniels.

To all these remarks Pierce assented with polite nods, judiciously interspersed at proper intervals. The result was, Johnny went below to join his new playmate, and Pierce was left to deliberate upon his responsible office of guardian.

CHAPTER IV.

THE position in which he found himself placed was both novel and interesting. To watch over the interests of the child was an occupation that would at least distract his attention from his own misfortunes. What a change he had undergone in the last few months! For the first time in his life, he was doing some real good. He had motives for action not purely selfish. He was reduced from affluence to poverty. He had suffered privations which two months past, merely to think of, would have made life unbearable; yet was he better satisfied with himself, and had better materials for hap

piness than he had had to all appearance

for many years.

It is easy to recognize the secret of his improvement in the reward of his conduct. He had not only done well, but was about to do still more good. From the lot of the boy and the fate of his parents, his thoughts reverted to the sickly woman whom he had promised to revisit; he remembered also the very disagreeable task which devolved upon him of making arrangements with an undertaker for the burial of Johnny's mother. Then for the first time it occurred to him, when thinking of the expenses of the funeral, that the last sum of money given by Winter could not yet have been spent. A fear crossed his mind lest, on finding the gold, the temptation of keeping it should have been beyond the poor woman's power of resistance. In such a case he would be deprived of both means and inclination to relieve her her as he had intended. Gratified with the first delights which immediately follow an act of

generosity, and anxious to satisfy himself that his suspicions of the woman's honesty were groundless, he hastened out to put in execution the projects of his kindly impulse.

Stopping at the first house, over whose door was placed the announcement that funerals were carefully attended to, he entered; and, applying for one of the workmen, conducted him at once to the hovel where lay the body. The sickly tenant of the ground floor welcomed Pierce with a feeble smile; she begged him to step in, and, resigning for his use the only chair in the room, seated herself on the side of a small empty box which usually served as a footstool while she nursed her baby. The dimensions of the chamber wherein they sat could not have been more than eight or nine feet square, and about six feet high. A chest of drawers, a bed, a table, and the one chair, left little space to move in. The height of the room, too, was diminished on the present occasion by some wet rags,