ittered away my existence in the fatal
metropolis of my native land. And once a week from February to December
I come hither. Good heavens! if I should catch the perch at last, the
occupation of my existence will be gone."

Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully
concluded. The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his costume.
He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness
too,--shabbiness in black. There was humour in the corners of his
lip; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his
occupation was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who
had not known manual labour. His face was pale and puffed, but the tip
of the nose was red. He did not seem as if the watery element was as
familiar to himself as to his Delilah, the perch.

"Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid
his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish all
one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch
nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water,
plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then "--here the angler looked
over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why then, young sir, he would know
what human life is to vain ambition. Good-evening."

Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups. Helen's eyes
followed him wistfully.

"What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing.

"I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up
to Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that
he was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost!

CHAPTER IX.

At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick,
oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on
the sight? It stole on them through one of its fairest and most gracious
avenues of approach,--by the stately gardens of Kensington, along the
side of Hyde Park, and so on towards Cumberland Gate.

Leonard was not the least struck. And yet with a very little money, and
a very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London
as grand and as imposing as that to Paris from the Champs Elysees. As
they came near the Edgware Road, Helen took her new brother by the
hand and guided him; for she knew all that neighbourhood, and she was
acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to that
lodging its