Rachel Gray

s, his excursions; he has foreign lands, splendid cities, galleries, museums, ancient and modern art: t

his all. He was twenty-one, when the grocer in whose shop his youth had been spent, died a bankru

ul feeling by more than hearsay -which he was not. Indeed, he never could or would have thought of Mary Smith as something less than a goddess, if, calling at the house of the relative

her's death-having to marry a poor fellow like him, &c." In short, he proved the most humble and devoted of husbands, toiled like a slave to keep his wife like a lady, and never forgot the honour she h

child; he had, indeed, felt more awe than fondness for his deceased wife-love had never entered his hear

ng a sleepless night, he rose with dawn, and went and fetched back his darling. During his wife's lifetime, he had been employed in a large warehouse; but now, in order to sta

table out-door occupation. After a long search and much deliberation, he pre

et on his way homewards; and fairer than his mistress's image to the lover's fancy, young Mary's face rose before her father on th

but I dare say this young person can tell us;" and he

t street on your right-hand, turn into the alley on your left, then turn to your righ

ctions twice before the wo

. Now, suppose I had, say fifty pounds, just to open with, how soon the thing would do fo

the desire to become a tradesman, and do the same thing in a shop of his own. But, conscious of the extravagant futility of this wish, Jones gener

ill vaguely wondering in his own mind, by what magical process the said capital could possibly be called up, when he reached his own home.

ar

m broke. Wer

ou

.

stopped payment Rich men lost their thousands, and eat none the worse a dinner; Richard Jones lo

ought flew t

for my little Mary's keep

the room to see what

tle enough there. H

thing about it Thank God

nk

so loudly, that his landlady forsook her couch to knock at his door, and inquire, to his infinite confusion, "if Mr. Jones felt poorly, and if there was anything

g, he fell asleep, and dreamed he had found a purse full of guineas,

t character; and yet, somehow or other, when he searched for employment, there seemed to be no zoom for him; and had he been a philosopher, w

for he was a Jack of all trades, and could torn his hand to anything, but certain of no continual employment. How he went through it all, still paying Miss

ely the suburb where Rachel Gray dwelt; ascertained, over and over, that within the mile circuit of that central point there did not exist one grocer's shop, and finally determined that the precise spot where, for public benefit and its own advantage, a grocer's shop should be, was just round the corner of the street next to that of Rachel Gray, in a dirty little house, now occupied by a ra

shop closed, the black doll gone, and the words, "To let" scrawled, in white chalk, on the shutters. Convinced that none but a grocer could take such a

m apprentice,

one at hom

ot oppose his entrance, but grimly repelled all his attempts at opening a conv

ning," was Jane'

s them bells ringi

ringing; they

ghed behind his hand, and looked round the room for a subject. He found non

enough," disdain

ottle shop is shut," he added, plu

antly; for the rag and bottle woman was her own aunt;

rred on by the irresistible wish to

o is going to take

o take it, do y

concerted. "La, bless the young woman! I

s young enemy off the scent; but her rejoi

u was, did I?" s

e reached the end of the street, and once more found himself opposite the closed rag shop. How he had come there, he did not rightly know; for it was not his way home

d like to se

of it. It looked down at him in the street, and apparently belonged to a little old man, to whom one very sharp eye-

replied Jones, rat

old man vanished from the window, and suddenly

ngly, like an ogre luring

by a magnet,

ed a door, and in the shop suddenly stepped Richard Jone

at glee; "neat back parlour;" he opened a glass door, and Jones

ase, that creaked under him. Mechanically Jones followed. There were two rooms on the uppe

parlour-very neat; upper storey, two rooms; one splendid; cosy bed-room; rent

n was uttered

an Richard Jones, wishing himself fa

bit; you take the house, keep shop, parlour, and bedroom for yourself and family-plenty; furnish front room, let it at five shillings a week; fifty-two weeks in the year; five times

cal landlord view the one-eyed and one-sided-nosed old man seemed to take of his

d the old man, his voic

five times

hink of such a thing,"

es.

pertinaciously resumed the old

can't," desperately exclaime

nty-five; from twent

ur taking away thirteen at that rate

then?" asked the old ma

ied Jones. "Who ever said I woul

d crawled, till you've sent the rag and bottle people away. 'Sir,' says the rag and bottle woman to me, 'Sir, we can't stand it no longer. There's a man, Sir, and he prowls around the shop. Sir, and he jist look

tongue, and who was quite confound

man, his voice rising still higher with his wrath; "

a civil tongue in your head, will you? I didn't ask to come in, did I? And

as he wisely mistrusted his own somewhat hasty temper, he prudently walked downstairs, and let himself out. But then he reached the street, the old