Sir Gibbie

. To the well-to-do citizen hastening home to the topmost business of the day, his dinner, these looked the abodes of unlovely poverty and mean struggle. Even to

hich brood the eternal wings of love and purpose. Only such different birds are hatched from the same nest! And what a nest was then the city itself!-with its university, its schools, its churches, its hospitals, its missions; its homes, its lodging-houses, its hotels, its drinking shops, its houses viler still; its factories, its ships, its great steamers; and the same humanity busy in all!-here the sickly lady walking in the panoply of love unh

eared some enemy lurking near to prevent his escape, he caught up a hat which looked as if it had been brushed with grease, pulled it on his head with both hands, stepped out quickly, closed the door behind him, turned the key, left it in the lock, and made straight for his earthly paradise-but with chastened step. All Mistress Croale's customers made a point of looking decent in the street-strove, in their very consciousness, to carry the expression of being on their way to their tea, not their toddy-or if their toddy, then not that they desired it, but merely that it was their custom always of an afternoon: man had no choice-he must fill space, he must occupy himself; and if so, why n

dirt of a week, through which it gloomed haggard and white. Beneath his projecting black brows, his eyes gleamed doubtful, as a w

," said the kindly grocer-

e that puir negleckit bairn o' his rin scoorin' aboot the toon yon gait-wi' little o' a jacket but the collar, an' naething o' the breeks but the doup-

, each holding its ladle, and its wine glass turned bottom upwards. Nor must I omit a part without which the rest could not have been a whole-the kettle of water that sat on the hob, softly crooning. Compared with the place where George had been at work all day, this was indeed an earthly paradise. Nor was the presence and appearance of Mistress Croale an insignificant element in the paradisial character of the place. She was now in a clean white cap with blue ribbons. Her hair was neatly divided, and drawn back from her forehead. Every tra

e-twilight, waiting for customers, when the fac

hinkin' ye maun hae forgotten, Sir George. This is Setterday nicht, ye ken; an' gien it war to be Sunday mornin' afore

is that of some other bulwarks of society and pillars of the church, "for the sake of example," I presume, to make n

known prologue to a hebdomadal passage between them. What if he did not intend going to church the next day? Was that any reason why he should not look a little tidie

en on a clean sark, an' washen my face. But I s' jist gang ower to the barb

sideration of her maid's festered hand, she would wash for him herself, was one of her late husband's which she had given him. But George's speech

let him spend his life in the streets. She comforted herself, however, with the reflection, that seeing he would drink, he drank with no bad companions-drank at all events where what natural wickedness might be in them, was suppressed by the

visible between the upper and lower halves of his

' hae a wash, an' pit on the sark ye'll see lyin' upo' t

in all the respectability of a clean shirt and what purity besides the general adhesiveness of his trade-material would yield to a single ablution long delayed. They welcomed him all, with nod, or g

t of this and that man of their acquaintance, or of public note, was pronounced upon with understood reference to those claims-now with smile of incredulity or pity, now with headshake

a certain unassuming dignity. For, if it was not universally known in the city, it was known to the

, for instance, who had been dismissed for losing a bag of letters the week before, not one of those present believed a word he said; yet as he happened to be endowed with a small stock of genuine humour, his stories were regarded with much the same favour as if they had been authentic. But the revival scarcely reached Sir George. He said little or nothing, but, between his slow gulps of toddy, sat looking vacantly into his glass. It is true he smiled absently now an

th! Ah! if this one and that of his ancestors had but lived to his conscience, and with some thought of those that were to come after him, he would not have transmitted to poor Sir George, in horrible addition to