Thickens took the big quill pen from be. hind his ear, and stood with his head on one side in an attitude of attention till the word "sixpence" was uttered, when the pen was darted into a great shining leaden inkstand, and out again like a peck from a heron's bill, and without damaging the finely cut point. A peculiar cancel ling mark was made upon the cheque, which was carried to a railed-in desk. A great book was opened with a bang, an entry made, the cheque dropped into a drawer, and then, in sharp, business-like tones, Mr. Thickens asked the question he had been asking for the last twenty years,

"How will you have it?"

I wish she'd keep her money at home. I believe she passes her time in writing cheques, getting 'em changed, and paying the money in again, as an excuse for something to do, and for the sake of calling here. I'm not such an ass as to think it's to see me; and as to Hallam—well, who knows? Perhaps she means Sir Gordon. There's no telling where a woman may hang up her heart."

James Thickens returned to his desk after a glance down the main street, which looked as solemn and quiet as if there were no inhabitants in the place; so still was it, that no explanation was needed for the presence of a good deal of fine grass cropping up between the pavingstones. The houses looked clean and bright in the clear sunshine, which made the wonderfully twisted and floral-looking iron support of the George sign sparkle where the green paint was touched up with gold. The shadows were clearly cut and dark, and the flowers in the George windɔw almost glittered, so bright were their colors. An elderly lady came across the market-place, in a red shawl and carry

"Would you mind, Mr. Thickens, giving me some smaller change?"

Mr. Thickens bowed, and, taking back the half-crown, changed it for two shil lings and a sixpence, all bearing the round, honest countenance of King George III., upon which Miss Heathery beamed as she slipped the coins in the blue and orange purse.

"I hope Mr. Hallam is quite well, Mr. Thickens."

"Quite well, ma'am.”

"And the gold and silver fish?" "Quite well, ma'am," said Mr. Thickens, a little more austerely.

"I always think it so curiously droll, Mr. Thickens, your keeping gold and silver fish," simpered Miss Heathery. "It always seems as if the pretty things had something to do with the bank, and that their scales

"Would some day turn into sixpences and half-sovereigns, eh, ma'am?" said the bank clerk sharply.

"Yes-exactly, Mr. Thickens." "Ah, well, ma'am, it's a very pretty idea, but that's all. It isn't solid."

"Exactly, Mr. Thickens. My compliments to Mr. Hallam. Good-day."

leaf tinted gingham umbrella in the other, though it had not rained for a month and the sky was without a cloud.

That red shawl seemed, as it moved, to give light and animation for a few minutes to the place; but as it disappeared round the corner by the George, the place was all sunshine and shadow once more. The uninhabited look came back, and James Thickens pushed up his spectacles and began to write, his pen scratching and wheezing over the thick, hand-made paper till a tremendous nose-blowing and a quick step were heard, and the clerk said "Gemp."

The next minute there was the sharp tap of a stick on the step continued on the floor, and the owner of that name entered with his coat tightly buttoned across his chest.

He was a sharp-looking man of sixty, with rather obstinate features, and, above all, an obstinate beard, which seemed as if it refused to be shaved, remaining in stiff, grey, wiry patches in corners and on prominences, as well as down in little ravines cut deeply in his face. His eyes, which were dark and sharp, twinkled and looked inquisitive, while, in addition, there was a restless, wandering irregularity in their movements as if in turn each was trying to make out what its fellow was doing on the other side of that big, bony

Morning, Mr. Thickens, sir, morning," in a coffee-grinding tone of voice; "I want to see the chief."

"Mr. Hallam? Yes; I'll see if he's at liberty, Mr. Gemp."

"Do, Mr. Thickens, sir, do; but one moment," he continued, leaning over and taking the clerk by the coat. "Don't you

think I slight you, Mr. Thickens; not a bit, sir, not a bit. But when a man has a valuable deposit to make, eh? you see? it isn't a matter of trusting this man or that; he sees the chief."

Mr. Gemp drew himself up, slapped the bulgy left breast of his buttoned-up coat, nodded sagely, and blew his nose with a snort like a blast on a cowhorn, using a great blue cotton handkerchief with white spots.

Mr. James Thickens passed through a glass door, covered on the inner side with dark green muslin, and returned directly to usher the visitor into the presence of Robert Hallam, the business manager of Dixons' Bank.

The room was neatly furnished, half office, half parlor, and but for a pair of crossed cutlasses over the chimney-piece, a bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, and a pair of rusty, flint-lock pistols, the place might have been the ordinary sitting-room of a man of quiet habits. There was another object though in one corner, which took from the latter aspect, this being the door of the cupboard which, instead of ordinary painted panel, was of strong iron a couple of inches thick.

"Morning, Mr. Hallam, sir."
"Good morning, Mr. Gemp."

The manager rose from his seat at the baize-covered table to shake hands and point to a chair, and then, resuming his own, he crossed his legs and smiled blandly as he waited to hear his visitor's business.

Mr. Gemp's first act was to spread his blue handkerchief over his knees, and then begin to stare about the room, after carefully hooking himself with his thick oak stick, which he passed over his neck and held with both hands as if he felt himself to be rather an errant kind of sheep which needed the restraint of the crook.

"Loaded?" he said suddenly, after letting his eyes rest upon the firearms.

66

"But

Oh, yes, Mr. Gemp, they are all load ed," replied the manager, smiling. I suppose I need not get them down; you are not going to make an attack?

"Me? attack? eh? Oh, you're joking. That's a good one. Ho! ha ha!"

66

No, sir, they neglect nothing."

"I say," said Mr. Gemp, leaning forward, after a glance over his shoulder towards the bank counter, and Mr. Thickens's back, dimly seen through the muslin, "does the new parson bank here?"

The manager smiled, and looked very hard at the bulge in his visitor's breast pocket, a look which involuntarily made the old man change the position of his hooked stick by bringing it down across his breast as if to protect the contents.

"Now, my dear Mr. Gemp, you do not expect an answer to that question. Do you suppose I have ever told anybody that you have been here three times to ask me whether Dixons would advance you a hundred pounds at five per cent.?

On good security, eh?" interposed the old man sharply; "only on good secu. rity."

66

'Exactly, my dear sir. Why, you don't suppose we make advances without?"

66

No, of course not, eh? not to anybody, eh, Mr. Hallam?" said the old man ea gerly. "You could not oblige me now with a hundred, say at seven and a half? I'm a safe man, you know. Say at seven and a half per cent. on my note of hand. You wouldn't, would you?"

"No, Mr. Gemp, nor yet at ten per cent. Dixons are not usurers, sir. I can let you have a hundred, sir, any time you like, upon good security, deeds or the like, but not without."

"Hah! you are particular. Good way of doing business, sir. Hey, but I like you to be strict."

"It is the only safe way of conducting business, Mr. Gemp."

"I say though-oh, you are close!close as a cash-box, Mr. Hallam, sir; but what do you think of the new parson?"

66

Quiet, pleasant, gentlemanly young man, Mr. Gemp."

"Yes, yes," cried the visitor, hurting himself by using his crook quite violently, and getting it back round his neck; "but a mere boy, sir, a mere boy. He's driven me away. I'm not going to church to hear him while there's a chapel. I want to know what the bishop was a-thinking about."

"Ah! but he's a scholar and a gentle man, Mr. Gemp," said the manager blandly.

"Tchuck! so was the young doctor who set up and only lasted a year. If you were ill, sir, you wouldn't have gone to he; you'd have gone to Dr. Luttrell. If I've got vallerable deeds to deposit, I don't go to some young clever-shakes who sets up in business, and calls himself a banker, I come to Dixons."

"And so you have some valuable deeds, you want us to take care of for you, Mr. Gemp?" said the manager sharply.

"Eh, I didn't say so, did I?" "Yes; and you want a hundred pounds. Shall I look at the deeds?"

Mr. Gemp brought his oaken crook down over his breast, and his quick, shifty eyes turned from the manager to the lethal weapons over the chimney, then to the safe, then to the bank, and Mr. Thickens's back.

"I say," he said at last, "aren't you scared about being robbed?"

"Robbed! oh, dear no. Come, Mr. Gemp. I must bring you to the point. Let me look at the deeds you have in your pocket; perhaps there will be no need to send them to our solicitor. A hundred pounds, didn't you say?"

The old man hesitated, and looked about suspiciously for a few moments before meeting the manager's eyes. Then he succumbed before the firm, keen, searching look.

"Yes," he said slowly, "I said a hundred pounds, but I don't want no hundred pounds. I want you —

He paused for a few moments with his hands at his breast, as if to take a long breath, and then, as if by a tremendous wrench, he mastered his fear and suspicion.

"I want you to take care of these for

me."

He tore open his breast and brought out quickly a couple of dirty yellow parchments and some slips of paper, roughly bound in a little leather folio.

The manager stretched his hand across the table and took hold of the parch

ments; but the old man held on by one corner for a few moments till Hallam raised his eyebrows and smiled, when the visitor uttered a deep sigh, and thrust parchments and little folio hastily from him.

"Lock 'em up in yonder iron safe," he said hoarsely, taking up his blue handkerchief to wipe his brow. "It's open now, but you'll keep it locked, won't you?"

"The deeds will be safe, Mr. Gemp," said the manager, coolly throwing open the parchment. "Ah! I see: the con. veyances to a row of certain messuages."

Yes, sir; row of houses, Gemp's Terrace, all my own, sir; not a penny on 'em." "And these? Ah, I see, bank-warrants. Quite right, my dear sir, they will be safe. And you do not need an advance?"

"Tchuck! what should I want with an advance. There's a good fifteen hundred pound there all my own. Now you give me a writing, saying you've got 'em to hold for me, and that will do."

The manager smiled as he wrote out the document, while Mr. Gemp, who seemed as much relieved as if he had been eased of an aching tooth, rose to make a closer inspection of the loaded pistols and the bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, all of which he tapped gently in turn with the hook of his stick.

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"There you are, Mr. Gemp," said the manager, smiling. Now you can go home and feel at rest, for your deeds and warrants will be secure."

"Yes, sir, to be sure; that's the way," said the old man, hastily reading the memorandum and then placing it in a very old leather pocket-book; “but, if you wouldn't mind, sir, Mr. Hallam, sir, I should like to see you lock them all in yonder."

"Well, then, you shall," said the manager good-humoredly; and taking up the packets, he tied them together with some green ferret, swung open the heavy door, which creaked upon its pivots, stepped inside, turned a key with a rattle, and opened a large iron chest, into which he threw the deeds, shut the lid with a clang, locked it ostentatiously, took out the key, backed out, and then closed and locked the great door of the safe.

There, Mr. Gemp; I think you'll find they are secure now."

"Safe! safe as the bank !" said the old man with an admiring smile as, with a sigh of relief, he picked up his old rough beaver hat from the floor, stuck it on rather sidewise, and with a short good.

morning, stamped out, tapping the floor as he went.

"Good morning, Mr. Thickens, sir," he said, pausing at the outer door to look back over his shoulder at the clerk. "I've done my bit o' business with the manager. It's all right."

"Good morning, Mr. Gemp," said Thickens quietly; and then to himself, as the tap of the stick was heard going down the street, "An important old idiot!"

Several little bits of business were transacted, and then, according to routine, the manager came behind the counter to relieve his lieutenant, who put on his hat and went to his dinner.

During his absence the manager took his place at his subordinate's desk, and was very busy making a few calculations, after divers references to a copy of yesterday's Times, which came regularly by

coach.

These calculations made him thought ful, and he was in the middle of one when his face changed, and turned of a strange waxen hue, but he recovered himself di rectly.

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Might have expected it," he said softly; and he went on writing as some one entered the bank.

The visitor was a thin, dejected-looking youth of about two-and-twenty, shabbily dressed in clothes that did not fit him. His face was of a sicky pallor, as if he had just risen from an invalid couch, an idea strengthened by the extremely shortly cut hair, whose deficiency was made the more manifest by his wearing a hat a full size too large. This was drawn down closely over his forehead, his pressed-out ears acting as brackets to keep it from going lower still.

He was a tamed-down, feeble-looking being, but the spirit was not all gone; for, as he came down the street, with the genial friendliness of all dogs towards one who seems to be a stranger and down in the world, Miss Heathery's fat, ill-conditioned terrier, that she pampered under the belief that it was a dog of good breed, being in an evil temper consequent upon not having been taken for a walk by its mistress, rushed out baying, barking, and snapping at the stranger's heels.

"Get out, will you?" he shouted; but the dog barked the more, and the stranger looked as if about to run. In fact, he did run a few yards, but as the dog followed, he caught up a flower-pot from a handy window sill every one had flower pots at King's Castor and hurled it at Miss Heathery's dog.

-

There was a yell, a crash and explo sion as if of a shell; Miss Heathery's dog fled, and, without waiting to encounter the owner of the flower-pot, the stranger hurried round the corner, and after an inquiry or two made for the bank.

"Vicious little beast! Wish I'd killed it," he grumbled, giving the hat a hoist behind which necessitated another in front, and then the equilibrium adjusting at the sides. "Wonder people keep dogs," he continued. "A nuisance. Wish I was a dog-somebody's dog, and well fed. Lead a regular dog's life, worse than a dog's life, and get none of the bones. Perhaps I shall, though, now."

The young man looked anything but a bank customer, but he did not hesitate. Merely stopping to give his coat a drag down, and then, tilting his hat slightly, he entered with a swagger, and walked up to the broad counter. Upon this he rested a gloveless hand, an act which seemed to give a little more steadiness to his weak frame.

The manager raised his head with an affected start.

"Oh, you don't know me, eh?" said the visitor. "Well, I s'pose I am a bit changed."

“Know you? You wish to see me?” said Hallam coolly.

"Yes, Mr. Robert Hallam; I've come down from London on purpose. I couldn't come before," he added meaningly, "but now I want to have a talk to you.” "Stephen Crellock ! changed."

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Why you are

Yes, as aforesaid." "Well, sir. What is it you want with me?" said the manager coldly.

"What do I want with you, eh? Oh, come, that's rich! You're a lucky one, you are. I go to prison, and you get made manager down here. Ah! you see I know all about it."

"I do not understand you, sir."

"Then I'll tell you, my fine fellow. Some men never get found out, some do; that's the difference between us two. I've gone to the wall-inside it," he added, with a sickly grin. "You've got to be quite the gentleman. But they'll find you out some day."

"Well, sir, what is this to lead up to?" said Hallam.

“Oh, I say, though, Rob Hallam, this is too rich. Manager here, and going, they say, to marry the prettiest girl in the place." Hallam started in spite of his

self-command. "And I suppose I shall be asked to the wedding, shan't I?” "Will you be so good as to explain what is the object of this visit?" said Hallam coldly.

Why, can't you see? I've come to the bank because I want some money. There, you need not look like that, my lad. It's my turn now, and you've got to put things a bit straight for me, after what I suffered sooner than speak."

"Do you mean you have come here to insult me and make me send for a constable?" cried Hallam.

"Yes, if you like," said the young man, leaning forward, and gazing full in the manager's face; "send for one if you like. But you don't like, Robert Hallam. There, I'm a man of few words. I've suffered a deal just through being true to my mate, and now you've got to make it up to me."

"You scoun

THE SENSE OF TOUCH AND THE
TEACHING OF THE Blind.

OF all the senses we possess, the sense of touch is at once the most complex and the least understood. Blindness and deafness are only too common, and we can all more or less appreciate the nature and extent of these dire afflictions. But who ever thinks how he would be affected by deprivation of the capacity to feel, inability to distinguish by touch between smoothness and roughness, heat and cold, or by an impaired power to receive the various sensations of pain and pleasure

which reach us through the surface of the body? How is it that the same finger which tells us that a substance is hard or soft, tells us also that it is hot or cold? Have we, as some physiologists aver, a sixth sense, that of temperature? If not, how comes it that a single touch of the finger conveys to the brain, in the same instant, two distinct impressions, perhaps three, for the substance in question may be wet, as well as hot or cold, hard or soft? Physiologists cannot tell us; they only know that the sensations so conveyed are separable, and that the ways by which they reach the brain are not the same. The subject is by no means new, but fresh light has lately been thrown on it by the researches of two Swiss savants, M. A. Herzen and Professor Soret. The observations of these gentlemen, besides being highly interesting, psychologically as well as physiologically, are of considerable practical importance in their relation to the training of the blind.

Pressure on a limb - as, for instance, when we fall asleep lying on one of our arms - if continued for some time, makes it more or less numb. It gradually loses the power of transmitting sensations to the brain. According to the observations of M. Herzen, the first sense lost is that of touch, the second that of cold, the third that of pain, the last that of heat. He says that when one of his arms is so torpid that he has to feel for it with the other, and it is impervious to a pinch or a prick, it is still sensible to the warmth of the other hand. If the pressure be prolonged, the limb ceases to be affected even by heat. There are people, otherwise healthy, whose capacity of feeling is so far incomplete that they never know what it is to be cold; so far as sensations conveyed by the skin are concerned, winter is the same to them as summer. This probably arises from an abnormal condition of the spinal cord. M. Herzen mentions the case of an old woman whose legs, partially paralyzed, could feel only pain and cold. At her autopsy it was found that the spinal cord in the neighborhood of the nervous centres of the back was shrivelled, and otherwise in an unhealthy state. But M. Herzen has not rested content with observations on his own species; he has made experiments on the lower animals, classified several of the sensations of touch, and discovered their localizations in the organism; and Professor Soret, taking up the psychological branch of the subject, has tried to find out how far the sense of touch may be made to convey