The Hand of Ethelberta

icles and people appear in the street with duplicates of themselves underfoot, when bricklayers, slaters, and other out-door journeymen sit in a shed and drink beer, when ducks and drake

and hung down the sides of each chimney-pot like the streamer of a becalmed ship; and a troop of rats

, not much larger inside than the Lord Mayor's coach. It was known simply as 'The Weir House.' On this wet afternoon, which was the one following the day of Christopher's last lesson over the plain, a nearly invisible smoke came

miles in search of wild duck and teal, a waterman, and a small spaniel. In the corner stood their guns, and two or three wild mallards, which represented the scanty product of their morning's labour, the iridescent necks

of the monotonous hue of dull pewter, formed an unbroken hood over the level from horizon to horizon; beneath it, reflecting its wan lustre, was the glazed high-road which stretched, hedgeless and ditchless, past a directing-post where another road joined it, and on to the less reg

by a figure in a state of gradual enla

oors to-day, business will never force him out,' he observed.

tempt en, is more like our nater in these parts,

t appeared as an epicene shape the decreasing space resolved into a cloaked female under an umbrella: she now relaxed her pace, till, reaching the directin

e removed the cigar from his lips; 'and by the lords,

ssaud complexion and well-pencilled brows half way up his forehead, so th

evoted to art, Ladywell, who has had the honour of being hung higher up on the Academy walls

on's, and also peered through the opening. The young pupil-teacher-for she was the object of their scrutiny-re-approached the spot whereon she had been accustomed for the last many weeks of her journey home to meet Christopher, now for the first time missing, and again she seemed reluctan

the end of several minutes of silence, when, full of vacillation and doubt, she became lost to view behind so

h a place in this weather? There she is a

may get an idea of the hour named by the fellow for the appointment, for, depend upon it, the time when she first came-about five m

tis her way home from school

patience under neglect. Two to one aga

till five would be nearer probability.

ide man, woman, or beast in Christendom-minutes that can be felt, like the

er retreat behind the sedge, and lead any chance comer from the opposite quarter to believe that s

wait the complete half-hour, and th

ur of five completed itself on their watches; the girl again came forward. And then th

ken heart in a woman means a broken vow in a man, as I infer from a thousand instances in experien

ed on nothing more of the nature of an assignation than lay in his regular walk along the plain at that time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the six previous weeks. It must be said that he was very far indeed from divinin

in the hut began to move and open the door, remarking, 'Now