at that time, all of whom were engaged like
the one before us. Scooping out the coal, and
sitting in the place he scooped, chipping
dexterously at the ceiling of his cell, so that the
droppings fell clear of his own body, he looked
like some gigantic fossil endowed with life and
struggling to free himself from his stony bed,
or a supernatural black hermit digging his
grave out of the solid rock. My nerves were
a little shaken by the treatment I had been
exposed to, and the very disagreeable hours I had
spent, and it quite seemed that the fuliginous
object before us was something more or less than
human—a conviction which only received its
death-blow by Vigour borrowing a shilling of me,
which the pitman cleverly caught in his mouth,
promising, with a hoarse chuckle, to drink our
healths directly he came out of this thirsty
place.

While sitting again in the cabin before
ascending, the pit poet was introduced to us, and
immediately recited an apparently interminable
poem, of which I only remember these eloquent
and soul-stirring lines:

             It was the (blank) day of December,
                The fact I will relate,
             That forty-eight poor colliers
                Went meeting of their fate;

and so on for a hundred stanzas. " Made it
himself," remarks the Twin, gravely-- " made
it himself while he was at work;" and when
we proffer a small money gift, it is
acknowledged by the strongest blessing it has been
my fortune to hear. After holding the coin
in his palm and bestowing on it the orthodox
expectoration, the poet shouts with a
rough genuflexion to the donor, " May You
(in very large capitals) Have Ten Thousand
weer yer now have One; may Heaven bless
yer, and the Devil neglect yer; and (more
rapidly this) " may the master of all the camp,
and pioneers of (Place Unmentionable) keep with
yer! (disappearing from the cabin door into
the darkness). Amen." This batch of good
wishes, delivered with feverish rapidity, took
our breath away, and it was only after a few
seconds had passed that we began to ask each
other whether we were not so many jackdaws
of Rheims, who had been heartily banned
rather than blessed. Whereupon the poet,
who, we afterwards learnt, was a cracked-
brained fanatic, was called back, and
repeated, without a single addition or variation,
the same words, disappearing as before
at the end. Again brought before us, we
learnt that the master of " all the camp and
pioneers" was meant for Providence, to whose
keeping we were fervently consigned. We reach
the blessed daylight, " the crack," and the aqueduct,
soon after this, and standing at the pit-
head limp, blackened, moist, and miserable, I
learn that I have been half stifled unnecessarily,
and that our going into foul-air chambers,
and down warm, hot, unsavoury, and greasy
shafts, has been due to Vigour's determination
to "give me a treat." Curiosity's smiles
betray him as an accomplice. My revenge is in
this exposure, and my advice to my readers is—
remember what Sheridan said.

THE DEAR GIRL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BELLA DONNA," "NEVER
FORGOTTEN," &C.

CHAPTER XXVIII. A WARNING.

IT was now coming to the night of the
Guernsey Beauforts' ball. These distinguished
strangers had indeed taken the best way of
silencing the ungenerous and ungrateful who
had been feasted by them, and who would yet
go about whispering their malignant slanders.
Even the upholsterer, who had uttered some
threats, and been so disrespectful as to ask
for a settlement in a rude blunt way, fiercely
and dramatically saying he had a family, and
would not be ruined for any people with the
clothes of gentlemen on (a rumour had reached
him and turned him wild), he became repentant,
and was grovelling at Guernsey Beaufort's
feet. That gentleman received him with a
surprising sweetness:

"My poor friend, you cannot help it. I can
make all allowances. You must be on your guard.
I do not blame you; but I wish really you
would take away these things of yours; they are
a little old-fashioned, and if I had listened to
advice I should have got everything in your
way from my old friend Moisson, at Paris; but
I wished to benefit the place I was living in.
No matter now; we must get on. as well as we
can."

"Oh, sir-- Sir Beaufort-- you overwhelm
me," said the repentant upholsterer.

"Not at all. But, I tell you fairly, I mean to
be out of your books at once. My agent is
coming over here on Friday, and I shall hand
you all over to him."

After this, it may be conceived with what
alacrity the artisan bestirred himself. The
room in the établissement had been sumptuously
decorated. Mr. Beaufort's taste was
pronounced excellent and charming; no expense
was spared, and it was owned that these strange
English, after all, had redeeming merits.

There was misery enough in that tinsel-looking
colony, yet it may be doubted if there were
two such heavy hearts as were to be found in
the rooms that looked on the Place. The two
women, Margaret and Constance, looked on the
struggle that he was suffering from, or rather the
hopeless acquiescence that was in his face. Yet
they were obliged to affect to see nothing, and
his efforts to be indifferent and take interest in
what was going on, wrung them still more.
Latterly, he had begun to complain of a heaviness
in the head. " I dare say it is coming at
last; and what a release for you from this feeble,
unmanly, infatuated creature, who is ashamed of
himself and of his life!"

Margaret had long ceased to reason with him.
Her hard, cold features were growing sterner