oldster. Blunt was too wary to borrow ready
money of his protégé. It was not the thing
to be in need of a five-pound note. But Blunt
obtained the noble nameof Debonnair as acceptor,
as endorser, or as drawer, to innumerable bills of
exchange at all kinds of dates. His lordship was
never troubled to part with ready cash when the
bills came due. He had only to sign his noble
name once more, and so, the interest was paid,
the bills were renewed, and Francis Blunt.
Esquire, was flush of cash, and would be able
even to give Jean Baptiste Constant a trifle on
account of his wages. Oh, the wonderful powei
of paper-money, and how wide-spreading are the
wings of Icarus until the wax melts off. Then
he conies down plump; as Law did; as Turgot
did; as the latest edition of Chevv CHASE will
do.

Frank Blunt drew his arm through that of
Lord Henry, and soothed, and flattered, and told
gay stories to the noble boy he meant to cheat
before sunrise, and whose brains he would have
been, under any circumstances, glad enough to
blow out: believing, as he did, that Debonnair
admired his wife too much. Poor boy! Has there
not been seen, ere now, a little spaniel puppy
dog frisking about in the den of a Bengal tigress?
Blunt allowed no trace either of his design or
of his resentment to show itself. He was a
diplomatic villain, not a melodramatic one.
Plunder your enemy first, and murder him afterwards,
if there be occasion for it:  so ran the
cautious current of Francis Blunt, Esquire's,
reasoning.

As fate would have it, he was destined, that
night or morning, neither to rob nor to kill Lord
Henry Debonnair. For, just as the boy and he
had quitted Gamridge's hospitable roof, and were
mounting the former's cabriolet, en route for
Crockey's, two men of mildewed, slightly greasy,
decidedly shabby, and unmistakably Jewish, mien,
made their appearance in the lamplight, one
on either side of the aforesaid cabriolet. A
third man, who was older, and shabbier, and
greasier, and more mildewed, but not Jewish,
appeared, with pantomimic suddenness, at the
horse's head.

"Good Heavens, Blunt, what is the meaning of
this?" cried Lord Henry.

"It only means," replied the dandy, with
well-assumed coolness, but with a very pale face,
"that I am taken in execution—arrested, as it is
called—for three thousand five hundred pounds,
and that, instead of going in your cab to Crockford's,
I must take a hackney-coach, with these
respected gentlemen, to Chancery-lane.

CHAPTER XV. GETTING UP,

THE morning broke very sadly and drearily to
the little child, left, quite alone, at Rhododendron
House. The servant-maid, with whom she had
been put to sleep, had risen at six o'clock, for
her work was of the hardest, and her pabulum
of rest infinitesimal. So, when, about half an
hour afterwards, the bold sun came hammering
through Lily's eyelids, preaching, to old and
young alike, that eternal sermon against Sloth,
the girl's place beside her being yet warm, but
deserted, it is not, I hope, to be taken as a very
wonderful event, if Lily began immediately
to cry. It does not take much to bring tears
from the eyes of a little child. The infant weeps
instead of cogitating; and the result arrived at
is about as logical in the one case as in the other.
Lily's dolour was as yet of no very outrageous
kind. It was less a fractious roar than a meek
wail of expostulation. Her sorrows dawned with
the day: the noontide of misery was to come.
She had but a very faint idea of where she was,
and a fainter still of how she had come there.
Everything was strange to her. Her memory was
naturally short. The events of the previous day
had been rapid, crowded, and unusual. The
upshot was hopeless confusion. So she betook
herself to tears. The sun, however, after
vindicating his dignity and potency before stirring her
up so rudely, seemed to relent. He condescended
to console her. He was a generous giant after
all, and acknowledged that so tiny a lie-a-bed
might urge some plea in abatement of his wrath.
There was time — hard and cruel time enough—
for Lily to acquire habits of early rising. So,
murmuring (if the Sun indeed can sing) that
beautiful burden to the old nurse's ballad,

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's quite enough for thee,

he, too, began to smile on Lily, and to show her
wonderful things. He had a plenteous store, and
a rich, and a brave; and the child smiled in his
company. The sun's beams dried her eyes. She
looked, and saw the motes dancing in the golden
rays; the strip of drugget tesselated in a bright
pattern, the knobs on the chest of drawers
gleaming in the shine. Then, outside, some
creeping green plants, stirred by the morning
breeze, chose, with a merry furtiveness, to peep in
upon her through the panes; and the sun turned
them to all kinds of colours. Her mind was
yet as light as a leaf: volatile, and carried hither
and thither as the wind listed. She laughed, and
forgot her little woe, and found herself playing
with the pillow, which, to her, speedily became
animate, and a thing to be fondled, dandled,
chidden, and apostrophised. It is the privilege
of very little girls to be able to turn anything
into a puppet; as it is of very little boys to make
anything into soldiers. I once knew the small
daughter, aged three, of a tinker, who nursed, for
a whole hour, a dead rat for a doll.

As nobody came, however, and the painful fact
of the pillow having no legs, became apparent,
and the sun went in (to cast up his yesterday's
accounts, may be), after showing, for a moment,
his jolly red lace at the door of his dwelling,
gloom came again to overshadow Lily's soul.
The petty horizon was very soon darkened,
and the rain-drops began once more to patter.
She felt very lonely, very friendless, very