ting evening. Small children were not much to
Lucilla's taste, and her nephew was not a flattering specimen. He had
the whitened drawn-up appearance of a child who had spent most of his
life in a London cellar, with a pinched little visage and
preternatural-looking black eyes, a squeaky little fretful voice, and all
the language he had yet acquired decidedly cockney. Moreover, he had the
habits of a spoilt child, and that a vulgar one, and his grandmother
expected his aunt to think him a prodigy. There was a vacant room where
Lucilla passed as much of her time as she could without an assumption of
superiority, but she was obliged to spend the evening in the small
furniture-encumbered parlour, and hear by turns of her nephew's traits of
genius, of the merits of the preachers in Cat-alley, and the histories of
the lodgers. The motherly Mrs. Murrell had invited any of the young men
whose 'hearts might be touched' to attend her 'simple family worship;'
and to Lucilla's discomfiture and her triumph, a youth appeared in the
evening, and the young lady had her doubts whether the expounding were
the attraction.

It was a relief to quit the close, underground atmosphere even for a cab;
and 'an inspecting lady must be better than that old woman,' thought poor
Lucy, as, heartily weary of Mrs. Murrell's tongue and her own
graciousness, she rattled through the streets. Those long ranks of
charity children renewed many an association of old. The festival which
had been the annual event of Honor Charlecote's youth, she had made the
same to her children, and Cilla had not despised it till recently.
Thoughts of better days, of home-feelings, of tenderness, began to soften
her. She had spent nearly two years without the touch of a kindred hand,
and for many months past had been learning what it was to be looked at by
no loving eye. She was on her way to still greater strangers! No wonder
her heart yearned to the gentle voice that she had once spurned, and
well-nigh in spite of herself, she muttered,

'Really I do think a kiss of poor Honor's would do me good! I have a
great mind to go to her when I come back from Kensington. If I have
taken a situation she cannot suppose that I want anything from her. It
would be very comfortable; I should hear of Owen! I will go! Even if
she be not in town, I could talk to Mrs. Jones, and sit a quarter of an
hour in the cedar room! It would be like meeting Owen; it would be rest
and hom