f at the train?"

She hesitated. "If--you--like," said she, slowly: "but I think you had
better not."

"Oh, let me see the last of you."

"Use your own judgment, dear."

The monosyllable slipped out, unintentionally: she was thinking of
something else. Yet, as soon as she had uttered it, she said "Oh!" and
blushed all, over. "I forgot I was not speaking to a lady," said she,
innocently: then, right archly, "please forgive me."

He caught her hand, and kissed it devotedly.

Then she quivered all over. "You mustn't," said she with the gentlest
possible tone of reproach. "Oh dear, I am so sorry I am going." And she
turned her sweet eyes on him, with tears in them.

Then a visitor was announced, and they parted.

He was deep in love. He was also, by nature, rather obstinate. Although
she had said she thought it would be better for him not to see her off,
yet he would go to the station, and see the last of her.

He came straight from the station to his mother. She was upstairs. He
threw himself into a chair, and there she found him, looking ghastly.

"Oh, mother! what shall I do?"

"What is the matter, love?"

"She is false; she is false. She has gone up to London with that
Coventry."

APPENDIX.

EXTRACT FROM HENRY LITTLE'S REPORT.

The File-cutters.

"This is the largest trade, containing about three thousand men, and
several hundred women and boys. Their diseases and deaths arise from
poisoning by lead. The file rests on a bed of lead during the process
of cutting, which might more correctly be called stamping; and, as
the stamping-chisel can only be guided to the required nicety by the
finger-nail, the lead is constantly handled and fingered, and enters the
system through the pores.

"Besides this, fine dust of lead is set in motion by the blows that
drive the cutting-chisel, and the insidious poison settles on the hair
and the face, and is believed to go direct to the lungs, some of it.

"The file-cutter never lives the span of life allotted to man. After
many small warnings his thumb weakens. He neglects that; and he gets
touches of paralysis in the thumb, the arm, and the nerves of the
stomach; can't digest; can't sweat; at last, can't work; goes to the
hospital: there they galvanize him, which does him no harm; and boil
him, which does him a deal of good. He comes back to work, resumes his
dirty habits, takes in fresh doses of lead, turns dirty white or sallow,
gets a blue line round hi