up and down the river? You fall into that
habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it
twenty times or fifty times, and there is nothing
special in your doing it the twenty first or fifty first."

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite
elated by it. We agreed that it should be
carried into execution, and that Provis should never
recognise us if we came below Bridge and rowed
past Mill Pond Bank. But we further agreed
that he should pull down the blind in that part
of his window which gave upon the east,
whenever he saw us and all was right.

Our conference being now ended, and everything
arranged, I rose to go; remarking to
Herbert that he and I had better not go home together,
and that I would take half an hour's start of
him. " I don't like to leave you here,"  I said
to Provis, " though I cannot doubt your being
safer here than near  me. Good-by!"

"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my hands,
"I don't know when we may meet again, and I
don't like Good-by. Say Good Night!"

"Good night! Herbert will go regularly
between us, and when the time comes you may be
certain I shall be ready. Good night, Good night!"

We thought it best that he should stay in his
own rooms, and we left him on the landing
outside his door, holding a light over the stair rail
to light us down stairs. Looking back at him,
I thought of that first night of his return when
our positions were reversed, and when I little
supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and
anxious at parting from him as it was now.

Old Barley was growling and swearing when we
repassed his door, with no appearance
of having ceased, or of meaning to cease. When
we got to the foot of the stairs, I asked
Herbert whether he had preserved the name of
Provis? He replied, certainly not, and that the
lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also explained
that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there,
was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell
consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest
in his being well cared for, and living a
secluded life. So, when we went into the parlour
where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were
seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest
in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.

When I had taken leave of the pretty gentle
dark eyed girl, and the motherly woman who had
not outlived her honest sympathy with a little
affair of true love, I felt as if the old Green
Copper Rope Walk had grown quite a
different place. Old Barley might be as old as
the hills, and might swear like a whole field of
troopers, but there were redeeming youth and
trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin, to fill
it to overflowing. And then I thought of
Estella, and of our parting, and went home very
sadly.

All things were as quiet in the Temple as
ever I had seen them. The windows of the
rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis,
were dark and still, and there was no lounger
in Garden court. I walked past the fountain
twice or thrice before I descended the steps
that were between me and my rooms, but I was
quite alone. Herbert coming to my bedside
when he came in—for I went straight to bed,
dispirited and fatigued—made the same report.
Opening one of the windows after that, he
looked out into the moonlight, and told me that
pavement was as solemnly empty as
the pavement of any Cathedral at that same hour.

Next day, I set myself to get the boat. It was
done, and the boat was brought round
to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could
reach her within a minute or two. Then, I
began to go out, as for training and practice:
sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I
was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but
nobody took much note of me after I had
been out a few times. At first, I kept above
Blackfriars Bridge; but, as the hours of the
tides changed, I took towards London Bridge.
It was Old London Bridge in  those days, and
at certain states of the tide there was a race
and fall of water there which gave it a bad
reputation. But I knew well enough how to
"shoot" the bridge after seeing it done, and so
began to row about among the shipping in the
Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I
passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were
pulling a pair of oars; and, both in going and
returning, we saw the blind towards the east
come down. Herbert was rarely there less
frequently than three times in a week, and he
never brought me a single word of intelligence
that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that
there was cause for alarm, and I could not get
rid of the notion of being watched. Once
received, it is a haunting idea; how  many
undesigning persons I suspected of watching me
it would be hard to calculate.

In short, I was always full of fears for the
rash man who was in hiding. Herbert had
sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to
stand at one of our windows after dark, when
the tide was running down, and to think that
it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards
Clara. But I thought with dread that it was
flowing towards Magwitch, and that any black
mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going
swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him.

SWEETS.

THROUGHOUT the whole of the great class of
animals headed by man, from the elephant down
to the shrew mouse, there is one sort of tooth —
the sweet tooth—common to all. Even the
canary bird understands sugar, while as for the
ants and the flies, they will die for it and in it.
Whether or not it be distinguishable by the
taste, some kind of sugar is known to exist in
nearly every kind of food taken by animals,
beginning with the mother's milk, which is always
sweetened to the particular want of each sort of
suckling.

So great is the enjoyment produced by this
taste in many animals that, although low in the
scale of wit, they soon begin to recognise and