ed its banks. To the west
lay a beautiful park and pleasure ground, while far away to the northward
stretched the deep, dense forest, tall, dark and sombre.

And over all this lovely scene the stars shed their mild, ethereal light.
O, Wimbledon! art thou not beautiful 'neath their soft, silver gleams?
And doth not shadowy-vested romance roam thy grassy paths and
flower-strewn ways to-night, and with her wild, mysterious eyes gloating
on thy entrancing scenery, doth she not resolve to dwell awhile, 'mid thy
embowering vines, thy dewy-petalled flowers, mournfully-musical
cedar-groves, and web a fiction from the thousand tangled threads which
complicate and ramify thy social life?

We shall see what we shall see in Wimbledon; for gray dawn is already
breaking in the dappled east, and a man, closely buttoned to the chin in
a gray overcoat, emerges from a large brick mansion on the outskirts of
the village, and directs his steps toward an old, black, rickety-looking
house, which stands just on the bank of the river, surrounded by a
tangled growth of brush-wood.

Here the gairish day at length disclosed what the modest night had
obscured with her diamond veil of stars. Squalid poverty glared through
the broken window-panes, and want seemed clattering her doleful song on
the flying clapboards and crazy casements. A feeble, struggling light
from within showed the inmates were stirring as the man in the overcoat
gave a loud, careless thump on the trembling door, which was opened by a
pale, gaunt-looking urchin, clad in garments bearing patches of divers
hues.

"Is your mother at home, Bill?" inquired the man, gruffly.

"Yes, sir," answered the boy in a meek tone; "will you please to walk in,
Mr. Pimble?"

"No; tell her I want her to come and wash for me to-day," said the man,
in a harsh, rough voice, as he turned away.

The boy bowed and reentered the miserable apartment, where a few soggy
chips smoked on a bed of embers that were gathered in the corner of a
huge fire-place. A woman, with a begrimed cotton handkerchief tied over
her head, sat on the hearth endeavoring to blow them into a blaze, while
the smoke, that poured down the foul and blackened chimney, caused the
tears to roll from her eyes, and baffled her efforts.

"Never mind the fire, mother," said the lad, approaching; "I'll try and
pick up some dry sticks in course of the day to have the room warm when
you come home to-night. Mr. Pimble has just called, and