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take him to Melchester three or four times a year, and then he could always see her.

The psendonym, or rather partial name, that he had given her as his before knowing bow far the acquaintance was going to carry him, had been spoken on the spur of the moment, without any ulterior intention whatever. He had not afterwards disturbed Anna’s error, but on leaving her he had felt bound to give her an address at a stationer’s not far from his chambers, at which she might write to him under the initials “C. B.”

In due time Raye returned to his London abode, having called at Melchester on his way and spent a few additional hours with hia fascinating child of nature. In town he lived monotonously every day. Often he and his rooms were enclosed by a tawny fog from all the world besides, and when he lighted the gas to read or write by, his situation seemed so unnatural that he would look into the fire and think of that trusting girl at Melchester again and again. Often, oppressed by absurd fondness for her, he would enter the dim religious nave of the Law Courts by the north door, elbow other juniors habited like himself, and like him unretained; edge himself into this or that crowded court where a sensational case was going on, just as if he were in it, though the police officers at the door knew as well as he knew himself that he had no more concern with the business in hand than the patient idlers at the gallery door outside, who had waited to enter since eight in the morning because, like him, they belonged to the classes that live without working. But he would do these things to no purpose, and think how greatly the characters in such ecenes contrasted with the pink and breezy Anna.

An unexpected feature in that peasant maiden’s condact was that she had not as yet written to him,