lady who told me the legend——"Bleeding
Heart-yard" stands close by to prove the story
true.

It was clearly a case——though it was not till
many years afterwards that I was wise enough
to understand it——like that of Tenterden Steeple
and the Goodwin Sands. The story had not
made Bleeding Heart-yard, but Bleeding
Heart-yard had made the story. The name impressed
the popular imagination, and the popular
imagination evolved and produced the legend
that was to account for it. And what, asks the
practical reader who does not believe in ghosts
or devils (though he may, perhaps, have some
degree of faith in Mr. Home the medium), is the
true origin of " Bleeding Heart-yard?" Two
explanations are presentable, either of which may
be the correct one. The first is that the ancient
names of the wall-flower——that sweet smelling
ornament of the garden——that in the Language
of Flowers is emblematic of "poverty," were
the "Blood-wort" and the "Bleeding Heart,"
and that one of the yards of Sir Christopher
Hatton's residence having been overgrown with
it, acquired in early times a name to which later
superstition, interpreting too literally, gave a
ghastly interpretation. The second is that, in
the days before the Reformation, there stood at a
corner of the Hatton-garden domain, an inn or
hostelry known as " The Bleeding Heart," and
that the courtyard of the aforesaid hostelry,
when it had ceased to be a hostelry, retained its
ancient name among a new generation. " The
sign of the Bleeding Heart," says Messrs.
Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten, in
their interesting History of Signboards, " was
the emblematical representation of the five
sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, viz., the
heart of the Holy Virgin pierced with five
swords.

Thus do myths grow; and thus, perhaps,
from as small beginnings, combined with the
love of the mystic and the supernatural, that
seems inherent in human nature, have sprung
up nine-tenths of the legends of Greece and
Home and of all the great nations of antiquity.

THE LITTLE OLD GENTLEMAN.

"WOULD you like to look at the Times, sir?
Singular trial that of Risk Allah Bey against the
Daily Telegraph."

The speaker was a curious little old man,
cleanly dressed, cleanly shaved, with short; crisp
white hair, and a face like a red pippin: such a
face as is hardly ever seen out of this country,
and even here rarely, save among farmers,
game-keepers, or others who are much in the open
air, and at all seasons. This little——for he was
very small indeed as to size——this little old
gentleman, was encountered in a first-class
smoking-carriage, on the South-Western Railway.

"Curious trial that before the Lord Chief
Justice," continued the old gentleman, as if
he wished to promote further conversation.

"I was once tried for murder myself:" with
a pleasant smile. "Yes," said the little old
gentleman, " and" (looking pleasanter than
ever), " very nearly hung, too. I did not get
off free. I was sentenced to transportation for
life; went through seven years of it; and then
they pardoned me for what I had never done.

"You see," said the little old gentleman,
smiling more than ever, as the five other
smokers in the carriage stared at him: " You
see, I was for many years a cattle-merchant in
London. My business consisted in receiving
from abroad——from Holland, Germany, Nor-
mandy, or wherever I could form a connexion
——oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, some on my own
account, others to be sold on commission for
correspondents who sent their animals to me
for sale. The trade was a profitable one. Every
beast sent over on my account was fully insured,
so that if it died on its passage I came upon the
insurance company. I had very few bad debts;
and, taking one thing with another, I may fully
have calculated upon realising at least twenty-five
per cent on my capital every three months.
In other words, I got a profit of a hundred per
cent per annum on the money I had commenced
business with.

"But with money comes the desire for more.
There was a time before I began to deal in
cattle, when I thought myself rich if at the
end of a year I had a couple of hundred pounds
in bank over and above my expenses for the
past twelve months. Now it was otherwise.
I lamented that I had not always an idle balance
of fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds. I
was fond of money for money's sake. I could
not make money fast enougli for my wishes,
in the cattle trade, and therefore determined
to do a little in the loan and discounting way.

"It is nearly twenty years ago, and I have
gone through a deal of trouble since. My system
was never to put too many eggs in one pot——
never to lend very much to any single person——
but to lend many small amounts to various
people. I used to answer the advertisements of
tradesmen in difficulties, and, if I found that a
borrower had good security to offer, I would lend
him perhaps thirty or forty pounds, taking ten
pounds for the accommodation for a month,
and much more in proportion for longer periods.
One of my clients was a printer with a small
business, near what was then called the New-road,
now Marylebone-road. He had often
borrowed twenty, thirty, and once as much
as sixty pounds from me, and had always
repaid me to the day. The security he gave
me was always the same, the joint note of
hand of himself and his brother, a grocer up
Hackney way. The name of this borrower was
Strange——Edward Strange. He was in a
delicate state of health, always suffering from his
chest, and in severe winters he used to be laid
up for weeks together with a bad cough. He
was a widower, without children.

." One day Strange came to me and said that
he had a very excellent offer to enter into
partnership with a printer, who had been