them in the surgeon's hands before anything could be said. He regarded her with a look of kindness, not unmixed with pity when she announced herself as the only surviving friend of the orphan party before him.

'Helen Fleetwood,' read the surgeon, as he opened the first paper, 'born so and so; then, my girl, you are now past sixteen?'

'Stop, stop,' cried Mr. M., we have nothing to do with certificates. The ordinary strength and appearance, doctor, is the rule.'

'We may also be informed of the age.'

'Well, well, there will be no difficulty in that. The two next are unquestionably both thirteen and over; the youngest nine; therefore-'

'No, sir, interrupted the widow; the little girl is not even twelve; nor this boy much more than eight.' 'Then why did you bring him here, good woman? You of course know that children are not admissible to our mills under nine years. The fact is, that little fellow wants but a few days or so of the requisite age; and having the strength and appearance fully, you would not condemn him to idleness and vice, for the mere formality of the thing; come, doctor, fill the certificate.'

'Excuse me, sir,' said the widow, modestly but firmly, 'I cannot wrong this gentleman by allowing him to certify what I know to be untrue. There is the parish register; you will see the child is only eight years and a half.'

'Then he must stand aside,' said the surgeon, while Mr. M. wrecked the nib of a pen upon his thumb-nail, with looks of evident vexation.

'Now for you, my lad. Past thirteen, I suppose?'

'Yes, sir.'

The surgeon mused for a minute. He had looked in the boy's pale face, felt his slender arm, and almost transparent fingers. Something appeared struggling in his bosom; and with a sudden look full at the agent, he said, 'I cannot certify.'

'Not certify! doctor, I have seen you pass many far younger, and quite as weakly,' without deducting anything on that score.'

'Very probably you have, Mr. M.; nevertheless I cannot in the present case agree to do it. His sister has more the appearance, and the reality, too, of the average strength than he has. I could conscientiously enter her in his stead.'

'You are quite right,' exclaimed the agent, 'let it be so; and the exchange will be an advantage to all parties.'

The widow said nothing, but presented again the open certificate of Mary's actual age to the surgeon, who, half smiling, proceeded to fill up the forms that left both her and her brother under the nominal protection afforded to children; for the legislature, by its latest act on the subject, recognizes as young men and women all who have completed their thirteenth year, and assigns to them the labour suited to adults!

The surgeon was bowed out by Mr. M., who proceeded with no very gracious looks to make the entries. Meanwhile the widow's heart smote her with painful self-reproach. She regarded the sickly boy as wholly unfit for even the light tasks that she had been assured would be assigned to him; and resolving to make any personal effort or sacrifice rather than injure him, she requested the agent to postpone the insertion of his name for a while.

'Nonsense, nonsense, my good lady. He will be rated at nine years old, and worked accordingly; and paid accordingly, too, thanks to your register and the doctor's conscience,' he added, with a sneering laugh.

But she still objected. In vain did the gentleman remonstrate, and in vain did he argue, except that the boy himself became anxious to undertake what was represented as being rather a pastime than a task. The widow remained inflexible; and the agent, after entering Helen and Mary, closed the book with an air of displeasure: then sternly told them to be at their posts by six o'clock on the Monday morning. He refused to listen to Mrs. Green's queries as to the nature and duration of their employment, which he said she might make out among her acquaintance, adding, that they need not stay there any longer. With a glow on her aged cheek, the widow led her companions to the door, secretly congratulating herself that she had not been beguiled into a more permanent engagement for the two girls.

When Mrs. Wright heard that not only Willy but James was exempted from the agreement, she lacked words to express her astonishment and regret.

'To be sure, this boy's cheeks are not so red as the others, and he isn't so overgrown as Mary; but if all that are not stronger and stouter than he were taken from work, a precious town of young idlers it would be, and the mills might stop at once.'

'I don't wish to be an idler, aunt,' said the boy, colouring.

'More shame for you if you did, and your grandmother, that has tended you all your life long, to have

you thrown on her hands now, when she ought to be supported by you.'

The boy burst into tears.

Granny,' said he, 'I

will work, and nobody shall hinder me.'

'Be quiet, my dear child,' replied the widow, soothingly; then turning to her daughter, she said, with considerable earnestness, Sally, I shall be always glad to talk over your family concerns with you at proper times, and to have your advice; but I must not be dictated to in what concerns these children; particularly in their presence.'

'Oh, to be sure!' said the other, as she violently swung a pot from over the fire; William's children must be gentlefolks anywhere; and their poor relations, that live by the hard labour of themselves and their little ones, may be proud of the honour of serving them.'

This unfeeling reproach sank deep into the hearts it was intended to wound; but no reply was given. After a short pause the widow inquired about the schools, and was sullenly informed that there were plenty, from among which she could make her choice.

'And the Sunday school?'

Wright can tell you about that; but it's little use for they will be too tired to go there.'

'I'm not tired a bit,' said Mary.

'Tell me that this day fortnight,' retorted her aunt with a significant look.

Dinner being dispatched, the widow announced her intention of seeking a lodging to which they might remove on the Monday: Mrs. Wright offered some faint opposition, protesting they were quite welcome to the best she had to give: but her mo

ther pleaded the advantage of settling at once; and having been told where to look for a respectable abode, she again sallied forth with her little band.

It was market-day: but the busiest hours of traffic being past, the country people were leaving the town, and our villagers had opportunity to contemplate the lower orders of the inhabitants now perambulating the streets, to pick up at lowest prices the refuse of the market and shops. Great as was the contrast between the dense smoky atmosphere of these narrow, gloomy, filthy streets, and the pure sea-breeze of their own sweet native village, it was less painful than that which marked the population. Health, cleanliness, and good humour seemed almost equally banished from among them. Of bold, noisy mirth, drunken songs, and rude, coarse jesting there was indeed no scarcity: the poor strangers often shrank back in terror from the sounds they heard and the sights they beheld, but not even little Willy was tempted to smile by anything about him. Groups of children there were, and far more numerous than might have been expected, considering the factories were all full; but they seemed nearly divisible into two classes-incorrigible, reckless idlers, and poor, enervated sickly objects, who had crawled forth from the surrounding abodes of poverty to mingle with them. Still hoping to reach a quarter where beerhouses and gin-shops should be fewer, and comparative respectability more apparent, the widow passed on but she found herself receding too far from the mill of the Messrs. Z., and the day fast closing too. She therefore fixed upon a small tenement, the occupier of which was a decent old man, who offered the accommodation of two apartments, such as she