land with the other patients, who all
pay me well (except Captain Higginbotham). But this poor fellow pays
me nothing,--costs me a great deal in time and turnpikes, and board and
lodging. Thank Heaven, I'm a single man, and can afford it! My poy, I
would let all the other patients go to the allopathists if I could but
save this poor, big, penniless, princely fellow. But what can one do
with a stomach that has not a rag of its coats left? Stop" (the doctor
pulled the check-string). "This is the stile. I get out here and go
across the fields."

That stile, those fields--with what distinctness Leonard remembered
them. Ah, where was Helen? Could she ever, ever again be, his
child-angel?

"I will go with you, if you permit," said he to the good doctor. "And
while you pay your visit, I will saunter by a little brook that I think
must run by your way."

"The Brent--you know that brook? Ah, you should hear my poor patient
talk of it, and of the hours he has spent angling in it,--you would not
know whether to laugh or cry. The first day he was brought down to
the place, he wanted to go out and try once more, he said, for his old
deluding demon,--a one-eyed perch."

"Heavens!" exclaimed Leonard, "are you speaking of John Burley?"

"To be sure, that is his name,--John Burley."

"Oh, has it come to this? Cure him, save him, if it be in human power.
For the last two years I have sought his trace everywhere, and in
vain, the moment I had money of my own, a home of my own. Poor, erring,
glorious Burley! Take me to him. Did you say there was no hope?"

"I did not say that," replied the doctor. "But art can only assist
Nature; and though Nature is ever at work to repair the injuries we do
to her, yet, when the coats of a stomach are all gone, she gets puzzled,
and so do I. You must tell me another time how you came to know Burley,
for here we are at the house, and I see him at the window looking out
for me."

The doctor opened the garden gate of the quiet cottage to which poor
Burley had fled from the pure presence of Leonard's child-angel. And
with heavy step, and heavy heart, Leonard mournfully followed, to behold
the wrecks of him whose wit had glorified orgy, and "set the table in a
roar." Alas, poor Yorick!

CHAPTER V.

Audley Egerton stands on his hearth alone. During the short interval
that has elapsed since we last saw him, events had occurred memorable
in English history, wherewith we have nought to do in a n