ll of his own sense of being, and
he already caught from the atmosphere the fever that belongs to anxious
capitals.

"Sit here, sister," said he, imperiously, throwing himself under the
shade of a pollard-tree that overhung the winding brook, "sit here and
talk."

He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and sprinkled his brow
from the stream that eddied round the roots of the tree that bulged out,
bald and gnarled, from the bank and delved into the waves below. Helen
quietly obeyed him, and nestled close to his side.

"And so this London is really very vast,--VERY?" he repeated
inquisitively.

"Very," answered Helen, as, abstractedly, she plucked the cowslips near
her, and let them fall into the running waters. "See how the flowers
are carried down the stream! They are lost now. London is to us what the
river is to the flowers, very vast, very strong;" and she added, after a
pause, "very cruel!"

"Cruel! Ah, it has been so to you; but now--now I will take care of
you!" he smiled triumphantly; and his smile was beautiful both in its
pride and its kindness. It is astonishing how Leonard had altered since
he had left his uncle's. He was both younger and older; for the sense of
genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and wiser as to
the world it soars to, younger and blinder as to the world it springs
from.

"And it is not a very handsome city, either, you say?"

"Very ugly indeed," said Helen, with some fervour; "at least all I have
seen of it."

"But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there
are parks: why should not we lodge near them and look upon the green
trees?"

"That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously; "but--" and here
the head was shaken--"there are no lodgings for us except in courts and
alleys."

"Why?"

"Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up the purse.

"Pooh! always that horrid purse; as if, too, we were not going to fill
it! Did not I tell you the story of Fortunio? Well, at all events, we
will go first to the neighbourhood where you last lived, and learn there
all we can; and then the day after to-morrow I will see this Dr. Morgan,
and find out the lord."

The tears started to Helen's soft eyes. "You want to get rid of me soon,
brother."

"I! Ah, I feel so happy to have you with me it seems to me as if I had
pined for you all my life, and you had come at last; for I never had
brother nor sister nor any one to love, tha