to-night." But Dan only grunted in reply, and Joe perceived that he must make up his mind to a solitary journey.

It was not without considerable heart-sinking that he saw his comrades turn up the hill to the station, remarking among themselves, "what an ould naygur Joe Murphy was, and he wid a couple o' quarts more cockles in his baskit than any of thim had "; while he went on to face the certain ills of piercing northwester and the possible perils of a spectral encounter. These last, however, remained purely imaginary, and he experienced nothing worse than bodily discomfort. The bitter blasts hurtled to meet him. with many a staggering rebuff; the intermittent rain came down in drenching dashes, so that as he drew near his goal the yellow glare of the lamps was reflected in swimming flags and dancing puddles; but chilled and dripping though he was, he felt himself to be a proud and happy man as he entered the dirty little baker's shop which he had seen with his mind's eye all the afternoon. His own keen hunger made the smell of the newly baked bread seem very delicious, and as he carefully stowed away two delicately browned, plumply swelling cakes in a corner of his now emptied basket-for he had paid a preliminary visit to a fishmonger-he grinned in a diabolically hideous, satyrlike fashion over the thought of Biddy's delighted surprise. He ther betook himself farther down the lane to a still humbler establishment, where he and others of his trade were in the habit of procuring the materials for their evening meal. Here he was pleased to find that Mrs. Kelly, the proprietrix, had reserved for him what is known as a "scrap supper," this being considered an especially profitable investment of twopence for any one who does not object to a slightly heterogeneous combination of ingredients. To-night the big tin bowl, the use of which was included in the bargain, contained one layer of cold pease-pudding, and another of cabbage, which, as Mrs. Kelly was careful to point out, had enjoyed the privilege of being boiled in company with a piece of bacon; also some odds and ends of sausage and sheep's liver, and half a fried herring, the whole compound being moistened with a greasy broth of undefined antecedents. This, in Joe's opinion, would furnish a positively luxurious repast; and he started, well content with his purchases, to thread the labyrinth of

slums and alleys which lay between him and the back kitchen where he resided. He had spent his last pennySaturday's "rint" and Sunday's idleness having as usual, left the arrears to be paid off out of Monday's earnings; but that circumstance did not diminish his satisfaction, a consciousness of cash in hand being by no means essential to his peace of mind.

He was coming very near his journey's end, when the onset of a peculiarly vehement shower made him uneasy about the safety of his precious cakes. So he paused where the lights of a small public-house flared out a bright circle on the surrounding darkness, and determined that he would transfer the parcel to his pocket—a most disastrous measure of precaution, as the event proved. For while he was in the very act of hoisting down his basket from his shoulder, a man came reeling out of the tavern and staggered heavily against him, with the result that his basket, being just then poised in a state of unstable equilibrium, swung suddenly sideways with a violent jerk, strewing all its contents upon the sloppy ground. The bowl fell, clanging stridently upon the pavement, whence it rebounded into a deep pool of slush which stretched beside the curbstone, and there it lay bottom upward, half-submerged. The cakes slipped out of their loose paper wrap, one of them following the bowl into those murky depths, which swallowed it whole with a single "plop," whilst the other went skipping playfully for some distance over the filthy flags, until its career was checked by its collision with an obtruding lamp-post. Never was a stroke of calamity more swiftly dealt. Before Joe well knew what had befallen him, all his cherished hopes had gone, like the wretched Ophelia, to a muddy death.

It would be quite impossible to record in these pages the utterances to which Joe Murphy gave vent as the full realization of the catastrophe burst upon him. But the worst of it was that neither he nor the tipsy author of the mischief seemed disposed to stop short at mere language, however strong; and a lively little scuffle was beginning, amid a ring of pleasurably excited onlookers, when the unwelcome arrival of a tall, soldier-like policeman caused a disappointing suspension of hostilities. And now for a few moments it appeared not improbable that Joe's misfor

tunes might culminate in a night passed at the nearest lockup. This danger, however, soon blew over. The obvious intoxication of Joe's antagonist rendered him à priori an object of suspicion, and Constable 27C was, moreover, sufficiently familiar with the ways and means of those whom he met on that beat to understand how serious a loss, and what ample grounds of provocation, might be represented by that inverted bowl and its ruined contents. So he presently marched off briskly with his erratically moving charge, the crowd melted away as rapidly as it had gathered, and Joe was left to his own forlorn devices.

It was a miserable scene. The lurid gas gleams shone, through the thick slanting raindrops, on tall black walls of ruinous, sinister-looking houses, on the miry straits which they bounded, and on-most piteous spectacle of all-the ragged wretch who was half crying over his beggarly loss, as he groped about the streaming pavement, seeking whether any remnant of his goods might perchance have remained uninjured. His own supper was past praying for engulfed irretrievably in the semi-liquid slush, never again to emerge as food for man or beast. But this afflicted him far less than the thought of the disappointment in store for Biddy, she who was to have fared so sumptuously, and who must now go to bed hungrier than usual, having supped on a mere crust of dry bread. With a faint flutter of hope he picked up the cake which had rolled along the footpath, and anxiously examined into its condition. It had evidently been trodden upon, and was grievously mud-begrimed, but he imagined that the moisture might possibly not have soaked far into its interior, and with clumsy, cold-benumbed fingers he began to peel off the outer crust, only to find that little, if any, of the dough was in such a state as to be edible by even a most unfastidious feeder. And in grim despair he tossed it with the empty bowl into his basket, and went ruefully on his way; for there was nothing to be gained by longer lingering, and he was already much later than his wont.

But how different a home-coming it was from that to which he had been looking forward all day! Nothing but misery could now await him. He knew well how it would be-how Biddy would storm and scold at him as long as she had any breath left, and then would cough and cough till

it seemed as if her gaunt frame must be shaken to pieces. And then the sound of that cough always went to his heart with a sickening pang. This dreary foreknowledge did not quicken his steps, and when he had descended into the long underground passage, almost as filthy as the street, which contained the door of his apartment, he walked slower and slower, screwing up courage to appear with his unwelcome tidings. The next moment he heard Biddy's thin cracked voice call sharply: "Joe, Joe; is it comin' in to-night you'd be at all, at all, and it goin' on for eight o'clock?" and he felt that he must delay no longer. But when he opened the door, it was upon a sight which made him stand still and gape.

He had expected to find nothing more brilliant than the darkness visible, created by a farthing dip. Yet here was the room all in a glow of light, proceeding, for the most part, from a great turf fire which burned ruddily on the hearth, whilst the atmosphere was pervaded by the unctuous odors of some most savory cooking. The rickety deal table, drawn up in front of the fire, was covered with eatables-a big loaf, a wedge of cheese, a goodly lump of bacon, a dish of fried potatoes, and, putting the last touch to his incredulous bewilderment, what seemed to him to be dozens of cakes, the exact counterparts of those which had been causing him so much perturbation. And there was Biddy sitting comfortably near the warm blaze on their one decrepit chair, and munching busily-indeed, her mouth was so full that she could say nothing intelligible for quite half a minute after his entrance.

If Joe had ever heard of the millennium, he would now certainly have thought that he had walked straight into it. But he never had heard of it, nor did he find his faculties at all equal to the task of accounting for the phenomenon. The heart of the mystery, however, was not far to seek or difficult to pluck out. Pat Murphy, a long-absent member of the family, concerning whose whereabouts and walk in life his brother and sister had dwelt in an ignorance which for certain reasons tended towards the belief that he was sojourning in one of her Majesty's prisons, had suddenly returned from a spell of seafaring, and to-night's extraordinary outbreak of profusion was due to his open-handed prodigality of recently acquired pay.

"Well, Joe, and how 's yourself?" he said, now in high good-humor, glancing round at his stupefied brother, but still stooping over the steaming pan in which he was carrying on some culinary operations. "Take a dhrop of porther to put a bit of warmth in ye. These sawsengers 'll be done iligant in a couple of minyits."

And here it will be well for us to take our leave of Joe Murphy. We might follow the course of his fortunes for many a long day before we should light on so auspicious a moment. Let us hasten away while the savor of Pat's sawsengers" still hangs about the warm room and before the last turf-sod has smoldered from throbbing scarlet embers to ghostly film-white ashes.

66

MISTHER DENIS'S RETURN.

From 'Th' Ould Master.'

An' the thought of us each was the boat; och, however 'd she stand it at all,

If she'd started an hour or two back, an' been caught in the thick o' that squall?

Sure, it's lost she was, barrin' by luck it so chanced she 'd run under the lee

O' Point Bertragh or Irish Louane; an' 't was liker the crathurs ud be

Crossin' yonder the open, wid never a shelter, but waves far an' wide

Rowlin' one on the other till ye'd seem at the feet of a mad mountain-side.

An' the best we could hope was they'd seen that the weather 'd be turnin' out quare,

An' might, happen, ha' settled they wouldn't come over, but bide where they were.

Yet, begorrah! 't would be the quare weather entirely, as some of us said,

That 'ud put Misther Denis off aught that he'd fairly tuk into

his head.

Thin Tim Duigan sez: "Arrah, lads, whist! afther sailin' thro'

oceans o' say

Don't tell me he's naught better to do than get dhrowned in our dhrop of a bay."