of moderate-sized houses, intended for private residences, sprung up on the Surrey side of the river, and have continued to increase until this day. They were soon tenanted by persons who let them out in lodgings, and who themselves, not infrequently, occupied the kitchen and the attics, thus contriving to live rent-free, and occasionally making a small addition to their in

comes.

The heads of houses were rarely seen except at early morn and dewy eve, being generally engaged at some employment in the city, or at the neighbouring wharfs and manufactories. They were rarely recognized in connection with their homes, which were associated more immediately with their helpmates; and Mr. John Morgan, principal messenger at a Lombard Street banking-house, was really nobody at No. 13, Coburg Street, although he paid the rent, taxes, and water-rates. No; it was Mrs. Morgan who exercised all the patronage of that establishment, and received all the homage of the vendors of milk and butter, butcher's meat, bread and grocery, green and foreign.

Mrs. Morgan was a capital manager, as her house was invariably the picture of tidiness. Windows which shone even in a fog; a door-step so white that a printer's devil-proverbially the most reckless of mortals-would have walked tip-toe to the knocker or glittering bellpull; blinds and curtains as spotless as they could be in London,-all proclaimed the exemplary housewife. All their rooms were let furnished-comfortably furnished; and neither chair nor sofa gave out the odour of haybands, as is too frequently the case with those ornaments of genteel lodgings. Substantiality was the pervading character of Mrs. Morgan's furniture, from parlour to garret, and there was nearly as much timber in her four-posters as in the beams and joists of the builder's house,' in which she lived.

Her parlours were occupied by twin brothers, who were twin clerks in the Bank of England. The Siamese were not more attached than Saul and Jonathan Black. They rose at the same hour; were hungry, thirsty, sleepy at the same moment; and, as Mrs. Morgan once said, 'they was, for the matter of that, no more trouble than one person,

though they paid double rent.' We shall have a little more to do with them, but we will pass up to the first floor, rented by Mr. and Mrs. Snidberry.

Mrs. Snidberry was exceedingly clever at mending lace and taking up dropped stitches in silk stockings, realizing thereby a very acceptable income. Sniddy, as she called her husband, was a clerk to Madame Delafone-the court milliner, as Mrs. Sniddy always informed you, but, of course, in that capacity, not on speaking terms with the Bank of Englanders, who always spoke of Sniddy as the milliner's bookkeeper. The Snidberrys were goodnatured people, and took small offence at the pretentiousness of the parlours; though Sniddy would now and then look in at the Bank of England when passing, to get change for a five-pound note from Saul or Jonathan (who were pay-clerks), and indicate some doubt as to the respectability of the Bank by ringing each coin on the counter, after weighing it on the end of his finger. We shall have to return to the first-floor presently, and must ascend to the rooms overhead, occupied by Mrs. Melville and her daughter Cora.

Mrs. Melville was an actress at the Coburg Theatre, then in the zenith of its respectability and fame. A more quiet, lady-like person than Mrs. Melville could not be desired for a lodger; and as for her little daughter, Cora, she might be described as 'an angel in the house,' so pretty, cheerful, and wellbehaved was she at all times. Cora was just twelve years old.

Mrs. Melville had acquired considerable reputation in the provinces; and as her benefits had been largely patronized, she was known to have saved money; and her success in London justified the expectation that she would soon attain a very remunerative position in her arduous profession. She always walked to and from the theatre, whatever the weather, and when not engaged in her professional duties, either in study at home or in rehearsing or acting on the stage, she employed herself, as Mrs. Morgan said, in making or mending for herself and little Cora,' so that a more industrious, commendable woman than Mrs. Melville could not be found on the Surrey side of the water.

She had now and then a professional visitor, and almost a daily one in Mr

Reuben Reynolds, who occupied the front attic. He was a young man about two-and-twenty, a portrait-painter; by profession-but he had evidently mistaken his vocation. Originally apprenticed to a house-painter, he had aspired to signboards; and from a small amount of success in that line, had believed in his capacity to pourtray the human face divine. He made a very limited income by his profession, and that principally derivable from his good fortune in being appointed painter in ordinary to a public-house portrait-club. Reuben was, nevertheless, a very temperate, abstemious young man, never yielding to bibical indulgences, except in the way of business, upon club nights. He had the knack of catching a likeness; and that was all satisfactory to his unartistic patrons. Besides, he was always liberal with gold chains, pins, brooches, and finger-rings; and his waistcoats were more diversified in pattern than any other of the portrait-club artists, who generally limited themselves to an unvarying brilliant yellow.

Reuben Reynolds had also taught himself the violin; and it was to impart this knowledge of the gay science to Cora that made him such a frequent visitor to the second floor. Mrs. Melville had no capacity for music; but Cora was exceedingly apt in catching a tune, and, having a very sweet voice, her mother had long debated with herself upon the propriety of having her taught to sing and play. But she had one great fear-a fear not uncommon with persons of her profession-she feared lest the cultivation of this accomplishment might give Cora a taste for the stage; and she knew, from her own experience and observation, what an undesirable pursuit that would be for one as sensitive and beautiful as Cora. She remembered what disappointment, humiliation, and insult had beset her own early youth (and she had been nursed almost upon the stage); and although chastity, charity, and goodness in all shapes may be found in the green-room of a theatre, there also were many vices-many temptations. No; she would not have had Cora an actress for twenty times her own success.

As Mrs. Melville's engagements had hitherto compelled her to be continually moving from town to town, Cora had not received any very regular instruction, as the charges of a boardingschool were more than could have been honestly incurred, as at the best the general actor's income is precarious. Reuben Reynolds, therefore, found a pupil also in the art of writing and the

science of arithmetic, and so he came to love Cora with a brother's love, which stood her in good stead in the time to

come.

Mr. and Mrs. Morgan slept in the back attic: fortunate indeed were their lodgers in having two such worthy people to provide for them. Exact in all their dealings, no petty advantages, pilferings, or contentions ever disturbed the internal economy of No. 13, Coburg Street; and had Asmodeus lifted off the roof of that humble dwelling-house, he would have declared it to have been occupied by the Happy Family. But, as old Capulet says—

'All things that we ordained festival

Turn from their office to black funeral,
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad bridal feast,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a bridal corse,
And all things change them to the contrary;'

and Mrs. Morgan's was to be a house of mourning. Mrs. Melville fell sicksick unto death. As she became conscious of her danger, her affliction was very pitiable to witness. It was not from the fear of death, or from an inordinate love of life, that her sorrow proceeded. Had she had a husband to whose care she could have confided her beloved child, the grave would have claimed no victory, and death would have had no sting.

But to leave Cora alone, friendless, without one relative to nurture her and guide her, was indeed to make the final parting terrible. The poor actress, through all the changes of her strange profession, had never been unmindful of the One who careth for the widow and the fatherless, and comfort was to come to her now that she most needed it. Good Mrs. Morgan, and her husband, John, had taken counsel together, and the mother's heart was quieted by the assurance that her child should be unto them as a daughter so long as they were spared to live. From the hour that that assurance was given, a peaceful calm came to the dying woman, and she would talk to Cora of the solemn parting which was at hand, and of the happy meeting which was to be beyond the grave.

Mrs. Melville had never spoken of her husband as of one dead-nor, indeed, as of one living; but now that Mrs. Morgan had become, as it were, the future mother of Cora, she, with many painful efforts, told what fol lows:

When Mrs. Melville was eighteenshe was Clarissa R- then-her

father, mother, and herself were members of a small provincial company. From her earliest years she had been engaged in a theatre; and, though her parents were well-conducted people, she had imbibed all her ideas of life and its duties from the artificial world in which she had lived. Love and marriage were always on her lips and in her ears, and she necessarily regarded those conditions of life as the principal objects for attainment.

At that time a young man joined the company, under the name of Charles Melville, and, though frequently twitted with the assumption of this name, he always asserted it to be his real one. He was gentle, manly in his manners and conversation, a very fair actor, and possessed of a much better wardrobe than usually belongs to young aspirants for histrionic honours. He was well received, out of the theatre, by the men in the various towns visited by the company, but his convivial qualities often led him into excesses which rendered him rather unpopular with the more respectable inhabitants. After a time, his attentions to Miss R-became apparent to every one in the theatre; and at last the parents of Clarissa remonstrated with their daughter, and also with Melville. The offending admirer protested against the assumption of the parents, and promised to be more guarded in his conduct for the future; and so the matter appeared to rest. But the young man had conceived a passion, which he believed to be love, for Clarissa, and-there is nothing new or strange in the story -she had given him her heart. The teaching of the stage now came into practice. The cruel parents were to be deceived; secret notes, clandestine meetings were to console the lovers until an elopement and marriage brought the usual dénouement.

Mr. and Mrs. R- refused to continue members of the same company as their undutiful daughter and treacherous son-in-law; but the manager would not accept their resignation, and dismissed the youthful offenders to find an engagement elsewhere. This was not very difficult of accomplishment, as Miss R had already made some noise in her profession, and Mr. and Mrs. Melville (late Miss Clarissa R—)' soon occupied a separate line in the bills of the Birmingham theatre.

The young couple might have lived happily and prosperously; but soon after the birth of Cora (Pizarro was then the rage) Melville became so irregular in his habits that dismissal

from the theatre was more than once threatened, whilst his behaviour at home became violent and degrading. Mrs. Melville bore with him patiently, indulgently, and only in his sober moments sought to reason with him, and to urge the abandonment of courses which were producing ruin to him and unhappiness to both. At times he would listen to these 'lectures,' as he called them, in silence; at others he would display great violence of temper and object to be schooled, and then perhaps absent himself for the rest of the day. coming to the performance of his duties in the theatre excited by drink.

The managerial patience was at last exhausted, and Mr. Melville received his congé-unknown, however, to his wife. On her return from the theatre one night, she found, as usual, her husband absent. She went to her bedroom to remove her bonnet and cloak, when, to her surprise, she saw the contents of the drawers strewn upon the floor, and the writing-desk, in which was kept the small accumulation of their earnings, forced open and its contents abstracted. Alarmed, she hastened down to the landlady of the house, who had not gone to bed she knew, and made known the state of matters above.

Then it's Mr. Melville that's done it,' said the landlady. I heard him making a great noise overhead-and stay, here's a note he left for you, ma'am.'

There were about a dozen lines, not more, but they told a terrible story-a story that was not to be played out for years. Melville was gone from his wife and child for ever. She had outlived his liking, as he had done hers: better that they should be free of each other; and so he had gone, never to return. Poor wife! she loved him still! loved the father of her child, with all the forgivingness of woman's love!-and he had left her for ever! There was no acting in the drooped head and the prostrate body, that seemed for many minutes to have parted with life at the cruel words which had been just now

read.

From that time until the day of her death Mrs. Melville had heard nothing of her wicked husband. Nothing, at least, that she revealed, even to her generous friend Mrs. Morgan; but she had found once on a time, after Melville's departure, the fragment of a letter which seemed to refer to some great wickedness of a son to a father.

That you are my son,' a trembling hand had written, is my misery and disgrace. I am only sustained by the