memories, even though those remembrances father's sake Will regarded old age with told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.

up

tenderness, even when most degraded and Mrs. Leigh heeded the loss of all these removed from the stern virtues which digthings less than her sons. She had more nified that father; so he took the old man spirit in her countenance than she had had for home, and seemed to believe his often-remonths, because now she had hope; of a sad peated assertions that he drank nothing but enough kind, to be sure, but still it was hope. water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself She performed all her household duties, into steadiness as he drew nearer home, as if strange and complicated as they were, and there were some one there, for whose respect bewildered as she was with all the town- he cared even in his half-intoxicated state, or necessities of her new manner of life; but whose feelings he feared to grieve. His when her house was 'sided,' and the boys home was exquisitely clean and neat even in come home from their work, in the evening, outside appearance; threshold, window, and I she would put on her things and steal out, window-sill, were outward signs of some unnoticed, as she thought, but not without spirit of purity within. Will was rewarded many a heavy sigh from Will, after she had for his attention by a bright glance of thanks, closed the house-door and departed. It was succeeded by a blush of shame, from a young often past midnight before she came back, woman of twenty or thereabouts. She did pale and weary, with almost a guilty look not speak, or second her father's hospitable upon her face; but that face so full of disap-invitations to him to be seated. She seemed pointment and hope deferred, that Will had unwilling that a stranger should witness her never the heart to say what he thought of the father's attempts at stately sobriety, and Will folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was renewed, till days grew to weeks and weeks to months. All this time Will did his duty towards her as well as he could, without having sympathy with her. He staid at home in the evenings for Tom's sake, and often wished he had Tom's pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavy on his hands, as he sat up for his mother.

could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man, with many a flabby shake of the hand, kept asking him to come again some other evening and see them, Will sought her down-cast eyes, and, though he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered timidly, 'If it's agreeable to everybody, I'll come and thank ye.' But there was no answer from the girl to whom this speech was in reality addressed; and Will left the house liking her all the better for never speaking.

I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will tell you something. She used to wander out, at first as if without a purpose, till she rallied her He thought about her a great deal for thoughts, and brought all her energies to bear the next day or two; he scolded himself on the one point; then she went with earnest for being so foolish as to think of her, and patience along the least known ways to some then fell to with fresh vigour, and thought new part of the town, looking wistfully with of her more than ever. He tried to depredumb entreaty into people's faces; sometimes ciate her; he told himself she was not pretty, catching a glimpse of a figure which had a and then made indignant answer that he kind of momentary likeness to her child's, and liked her looks much better than any beauty following that figure with never wearying of them all. He wished he was not so perseverance, till some light from shop or country looking, so red-faced, so broadlamp showed the cold strange face which was shouldered; while she was like a lady, with not her daughter's. Once or twice a kind- her smooth colourless complexion, her bright hearted passer-by, struck by her look of dark hair and her spotless dress. Pretty, or yearning woe, turned back and offered help, not pretty, she drew his footsteps towards or asked her what she wanted. When so her; he could not resist the impulse that spoken to, she answered only, 'You don't made him wish to see her once more, and know a poor girl they call Lizzie Leigh, do find out some fault which should unloose you and when they denied all knowledge, his heart from her unconscious keeping. she shook her head, and went on again. I But there she was, pure and maidenly as think they believed her to be crazy. But she before. He sat and looked, answering her never spoke first to any one. She sometimes father at cross-purposes, while she drew took a few minutes' rest on the door-steps, and sometimes (very seldom) covered her face and cried; but she could not afford to lose time and chances in this way; while her eyes were blinded with tears, the lost one might pass by unseen.

One evening, in the rich time of shortening autumn-days, Will saw an old man, who, without being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly along the foot-path, and was mocked for his unsteadiness of gait by the idle boys of the neighbourhood. For his

more and more into the shadow of the chimney-corner out of sight. Then the spirit that possessed him (it was not he himself, sure, that did so impudent a thing!) made him get up and carry the candle to a different place, under the pretence of giving her more light at her sewing, but, in reality, to be able to see her better; she could not stand this much longer, but jumped up, and said she must put her little niece to bed; and surely, there never was, before or since, so troublesome a child of two years old; for, though Will staid

an hour and a half longer, she never came haggard, care-worn looks. She listened with down again. He won the father's heart, a startled recollection of Will's claims upon though, by his capacity as a listener, for her love. She noticed his decreasing appetite, some people are not at all particular, and, and half-checked sighs. so that they themselves may talk on undisturbed, are not so unreasonable as to expect attention to what they say.

'Will, lad! what's come o'er thee?' said she to him, as he sat listlessly gazing into the fire. 'There's nought the matter with me,' said he, as if annoyed at her remark.

"Nay, lad, but there is.' He did not speak again to contradict her; indeed she did not know if he had heard her, so unmoved did he look.

'Would'st like to go back to Upclose Farm?' asked she, sorrowfully.

'It's just blackberrying time,' said Tom. Will shook his head. She looked at him awhile, as if trying to read that expression of despondency and trace it back to its source.

Will and Tom could go,' said she; 'I must stay here till I've found her, thou know'st,' continued she, dropping her voice.

He turned quickly round, and with the authority he at all times exercised over Tom, bade him begone to bed.

When Tom had left the room he prepared to speak.

VALENTINE'S DAY AT THE POST-
OFFICE.

Will did gather this much, however, from the old man's talk. He had once been quite in a genteel line of business, but had failed for more money than any greengrocer he had heard of; at least, any who did not mix up fish and game with greengrocery proper. This grand failure seemed to have been the event of his life, and one on which he dwelt with a strange kind of pride. It appeared as if at present he rested from his past exertions (in the bankrupt line), and depended on his daughter, who kept a small school for very young children. But all these particulars Will only remembered and understood, when he had left the house; at the time he heard them, he was thinking of Susan. After he had made good his footing at Mr. Palmer's, he was not long, you may be sure, without finding some reason for returning again and again. He listened to her father, he talked to the little niece, but he looked at Susan, both while he listened and while he talked. Her father kept on insisting upon his former gentility, the details of which would have LATE in the afternoon of the 14th of Feappeared very questionable to Will's mind, if bruary last past, an individual who bore not the sweet, delicate, modest Susan had not the smallest resemblance to a despairing lover, thrown an inexplicable air of refinement over or, indeed, to a lover in any state of mind, all she came near. She never spoke much; was seen to drop into the box of a Fleet she was generally diligently at work; but Street receiving-house two letters folded in when she moved it was so noiselessly, and flaming covers. He did not look round to see when she did speak, it was in so low and soft if he were observed, but walked boldly into a voice, that silence, speech, motion and still- the shop with a third epistle, and deposited ness, alike seemed to remove her high above Will's reach into some saintly and inaccessible air of glory-high above his reach, even as she knew him! And, if she were made acquainted with the dark secret behind, of his sister's shame, which was kept ever present to his mind by his mother's nightly search among the outcast and forsaken, would not Susan shrink away from him with loathing, as if he were tainted by the involuntary relationship? This was his dread; and thereupon followed a resolution that he would withdraw from her sweet company before it 'Very well. Let us now watch the result.' was too late. So he resisted internal temp- Most people are aware that the Great Natation, and staid at home, and suffered and tional Post-Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand is sighed. He became angry with his mother divided into halves by a passage, whose sides for her untiring patience in seeking for one are perforated with what is called the who, he could not help hoping, was deadWindow Department.' Here huge slits gape rather than alive. He spoke sharply to her, for letters, whole sashes yawn for newspapers, and received only such sad deprecatory an- or wooden panes open for clerks to frame their swers as made him reproach himself, and still large faces, like giant visages in the slides of a more lose sight of peace of mind. This Magic Lanthorn; and to answer inquiries, or struggle could not last long without affect-receive unstamped paid letters. The southern ing his health; and Tom, his sole companion side is devoted to the London District Post, through the long evenings, noticed his in- and the northern to what still continues to creasing languor, his restless irritability, with be called the Inland Department,' although perplexed anxiety, and at last resolved to foreign, colonial, and other outlandish correcall his mother's attention to his brother's spondence now passes through it. It was with

thereon one penny. Considering the suspicious appearance of this document for it's envelope was green-he retired from the counter with extraordinary nonchalance, and coolly walked on towards Ludgate Hill.

Long paces soon brought him to St. Martin'sle-Grand, for he strode like a man who had an imminent appointment. Sure enough, under the clock of the General Post-Office, he joined another, who eagerly asked,— 'Have you done it ?

The answer was, 'I have!'

the London District Branch that the two gen-showed the inquirers that one of their epistles tlemen first appeared to have business. was safe. Suddenly the motion was stopped; Having been led through a maze of offices the official had instinctively detected that one and passages more or less dark, they found letter was insufficiently adorned with the themselves like knights-errant in a fairy tale Queen's profile, and he weighed and taxed it -'in an enormous hall, illumined by myriads double in a twinkling. Having proved the of lights. Without being exactly transformed number of stamped letters to be exactly as into statues, or stricken fast asleep, the occu- per account rendered, he went on checking pants of this hall (whose name was Legion) off the prepaid, turning up the sender's green appeared to be in an enchanted state of idle- missive in the process. He then dealt with ness. Among a wilderness of long tables, the unpaid, amongst which the lookers-on and of desks not unlike those on which butter- perceived their yellow one. The cash column men perform their active parts of legerdemain was computed and cast in a single thought, in making 'pats-only these desks were and a short-hand mark, signifying quite covered with black cloth-they were reading correct,' dismissed the Fleet Street bill upon books, talking together, wandering about, a file, for the leisurely scrutiny of the Receiverlying down, or drinking coffee-apparently General's office. All the other letters, and all quite unused to doing any work, and not at the other bills of all the other receivingall expectant of ever having anything to do, houses, were going through the same routine but die. at all the other tables; and these performances are repeated ten times in every day, all the year round, Sundays excepted!

In a few minutes, and without any preparation, a great stir began at one end of this hall, and an immense train of private performers, in the highest state of excitement, poured in, getting up, on an immense scale, the first scene in the Miller and his Men.' Each had a sack on his back; each bent under its weight; and the bare sight of these sacks, as if by magic, changed all the readers, all the talkers, all the wanderers, all the liersdown, all the coffee-drinkers, into a colony of human ants!

'You perceived,' said one of the two friends, that in the rapid process of counting, our stamped letter gleamed past like a meteor, whilst our money-paid and unpaid epistles remained long enough under observation for a careful reading of the superscriptions.'

'That delay,' said an intelligent official, 'is occasioned because the latter are unstamped. Such letters cause a great complication of trouble, wholly avoided by the use of Queen's heads. Every officer through whose hands they pass-from the receiving-house-keeper to the carriers who deliver them at their destinations-has to give and take a cash account of each. If the public would put stamps on all letters, it would save us, and therefore itself, some thousands a-year.

'What are the proportions of the stamped to the prepaid and unpaid letters which pass through all the post-offices during the year?'

'We can tell within a very near approximation to correctness:-337,500,000 passed through the post-offices of the United Kingdom during last year, and to every 100 of them about fifty had stamps; 46 were prepaid with pennies; and only 4 were committed to the box unpaid.'

For the sacks were great sheepskin bags of letters tumbling in from the receivinghouses. Anon they looked like whole flocks suddenly struck all of a heap, ready for slaughter; for a ruthless individual stood at a table, with sleeves tucked up and knife in hand, who rapidly cut their throats, dived into their insides, abstracted their contents, and finally skinned them. For every letter we leave behind,' said the bag-opener, in answer to an inquiry, 'we are fined half-acrown. That's why we turn them inside out.' The mysterious visitors closely scrutinised the letters that were disgorged. These were from all parts of London to all parts of London and to the provinces and to the far-off quarters of the globe. An acute postman might guess the broad tenour of their contents by their While one of the visitors was receiving this covers :-business letters are in big envelopes, information, the other had followed his varieofficial letters in long ones, and lawyers' letters gated letters to the next process; which was in none at all; the tinted and lace-bordered that of stamping on the sealed face, in red ink, mean Valentines, the black-bordered tell of the date and hour of despatch. The letters grief, and the radiant with white enamel are ranged in a long row, like a pack of cards announce marriage. When the Fleet Street thrown across a table, and so fast does the dispatch appeared, the visitors tracked it, stamper's hand move, that he can mark 3000 and the operations of the clerk who separated in an hour. While defacing the Queen's heads the three bundles of which it consisted were closely followed. With the prying curiosity which now only began to show itself, one of the intruders actually took a copy of the bill which accompanied the letters. It set forth in three lines that there were so many 'Stamped,' so many 'Prepaid,' and so many Unpaid.'

The clerk counted the stamped letters like Fightning, and a flash of red gleaming past

on the other side, he counts as he thumps, till he enumerates fifty, when he dodges his stamp on one side to put his black mark on a piece of plain paper. All these memoranda are afterwards collected by the president, who, reckoning fifty letters to every black mark, gets a near approximation to the number that have passed through the office.

It was by this means that our friends

obtained the following account of the number and lodge in the division marked 'general,' as of district letters that passed through this office on St. Valentine's Day :-—

magically as a conjurer causes any card you may choose to fly out of the whole pack. 'These letters,' remarked the expositor, 'being for the country will be presently passed into the Inland Office through a tunnel under the hall. The "blind" letters have superscriptions which the sorters cannot decypher, and are sent to the "blind " table where a gentleman presides, to whom, from the extreme sharpness of his vision, we give the lucus à non lucendo name of the "blind clerk." You will have a specimen of his powers presently.'

While this dialogue was going on there was a general abatement of the noise of stamping, and shuffling letters, and when the visitors looked round, the place had relapsed into its former tranquillity. It was scarcely credible that from 30,000 to 40,000 letters had been received, stamped, counted, sorted, and sent away in so short a time. 'A judicious division of labour,' remarked one of our friends, 'must work these miracles.'

'Entirely.'

To this total are to be added 6,000 bye' letters or those which passed from village to village within the suburban limits of the district post without reaching the chief office and 100,000 destined for the provinces 'Yes, sir,' was the reply of an official, and and places beyond sea, which were transferred there are from 1200 to 1700 of us to do the to the Inland Department. The grand total work of the district post alone. When it was for the day, therefore, rose to nearly 300,000. removed from Gerard Street to this building Thus the sacrifices to the fane of St. Valentine there was not a quarter of that number. For -consisting of hearts, darts, Cupid peeping instance then, three carriers sufficed for the out of paper-roses, Hymen embowered in hot- Paddington district; but, by the dispatch pressed embossing, swains in very blue coats you have just seen completed, we have sent and nymphs in very opaque muslin, coarse off 2000 letters to that single locality by the caricatures and tender verses-caused an hands of twenty-five carriers.' augmentation to the revenue on this anniver- "The increase is attributable to the penny sary equal to about 70,000 missives; 123,000 system?' interrogated one of our inquiring being the usual daily average for district and friends. 'byes' during the month of February. This increase, being peculiar to cross and district The questioner then referred to a Parliaposts, does not so much affect the Inland mentary paper of which he had obtained posOffice, for lovers and sweethearts are gene- session. It showed him the history of general rally neighbours. The entire correspondence postal increase since the era of dear distance of the three kingdoms is augmented on each rates. In 1839-under the old system-the St. Valentine's day to the extent of about number of letters which passed through the 400,000 letters. post was 76,000,000. In 1840 came the 'Is it possible?' exclaimed one of the visi-uniform penny, and for that year the number tors, regarding the piles of epistles on the nu- was 162,000,000, or an increase of 93,000,000, merous tables, that this mass of letters can equal to 123 per cent. That was the grand be arranged and sent away to their respective start; afterwards the rate of increase subaddresses in time to receive the next collec-sided from 36 per cent. in 1841, to 16 per cent. tion, which will arrive in less than an hour?' in 1842 and 1843. In 1845, and the three folQuite,' replied an obliging informant, I'll lowing years, the increase was respectively, 39, tell you how we do it. We have divided 37, and 30 per cent. Then succeeded a sudden London into seventeen sections. There they drop; perhaps the culminating point had been are, you perceive.' He then pointed to the attained. The Post-Office is, however, a thertables with pigeon-holes numbered from one mometer of commerce: during the depressing to seventeen; one marked 'blind,' with a year 1848, the number of letters increased no nineteenth labelled 'general.' It was ex- more than 9 per cent. But last year 37,500,000 plained that the proper arrangement of epistles passed through the office, being an the letters in these compartments consti- augmentation of 8,500,000 upon the preceding tutes the first sorting. They are then sorted into sub-divisions; then into districts, and finally handed over to the letter-carriers, who, in another room, arrange them for their own convenience into 'walks.' As the visitors looked round they perceived their coloured envelopes-which were all addressed to Scotland-suddenly emerge from a chaotic heap,

year, or 11 per cent. of progressive increase. Another Parliamentary document shows, that, although the business is now exactly fourand-a-half times more than it was in 1839, the expense of doing it has only doubled. In the former year the cost of the establishment was not quite 690,000l.; in 1849 it was about 1,400,000%.