an
cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly unmoved.
After a brief pause the nature of the errand was explained, and the oath
tendered.

'Oh, no, gentlemen,' said the girl, raising herself once more, and
folding her hands together; 'no, gentlemen, for God's sake! I did it
myself--it was nobody's fault--it was an accident. He didn't hurt me; he
wouldn't for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn't!'

Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bedclothes
in search of his. Brute as the man was, he was not prepared for this.
He turned his face from the bed, and sobbed. The girl's colour changed,
and her breathing grew more difficult. She was evidently dying.

'We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,' said the gentleman
who had spoken first, 'but let me warn you, not to persist in what you
know to be untrue, until it is too late. It cannot save him.'

'Jack,' murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm, 'they shall not
persuade me to swear your life away. He didn't do it, gentlemen. He
never hurt me.' She grasped his arm tightly, and added, in a broken
whisper, 'I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done,
and the life I have led. God bless you, Jack. Some kind gentleman take
my love to my poor old father. Five years ago, he said he wished I had
died a child. Oh, I wish I had! I wish I had!'

The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the sheet
over her face. It covered a corpse.

CHAPTER VII--THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE

If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular kind
of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of 'Old Boys;'
and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require. To
what precise causes the rapid advance of old-boy population is to be
traced, we are unable to determine. It would be an interesting and
curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient space to devote to it
here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys have been
gradually augmenting within the last few years, and that they are at this
moment alarmingly on the increase.

Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it minutely
in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys into two
distinct classes--the gay old boys, and the steady old boys. The gay old
boys, are paunchy old men in the disgui