Sophy's face, and asked her if she felt faint or giddy. "Not very, father. It will soon be over." Then turning from the pretty, patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted greasepot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) "She says the good luck is the butcher's. Where is he?" Everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket and take the lot. The party so picked out in general does feel obliged to take the lot. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. Next came the ladies' lot, the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half a dozen spoons, and caudle-cup,-and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What troubles you, darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled. But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes, my dear." "Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green." I staggers back into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, "Quick. Shut the door! Don't let those laughing people see!" "What's the matter?" she cries. "O woman, woman," I tells her, "you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she's dead, and has flown away from you!"

Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em, but

from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed and her eyes looking on the ground. So sad our lives went on till one summer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter out of the further West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, "Don't beat me! O mother, mother, mother!" Then my wife stopped her ears and ran away like a wild thing, and the next day she was found in the river.

Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful louely feelings on me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private and rolled upon me.

It was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson.

This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me, under the seal of confidence, that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step-daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. He was such a very languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities, that I don't know how long it did n't take him to get this story out; but it passed through his defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time.

When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I could n't see the giant through what stood in

my eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence, for he was kept as short as he was long.

His master's name was Mim, a wery I knew him to speak to.

hoarse man, and

To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim, and said: "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?" "A pair of braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a-going to do with you. I'm a-going to fetch you half a dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." "I'll believe it when I've got the goods, and no sooner.' I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed.

It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to begin to understand one another through the goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea what it is to have anybody won. derful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me.

You'd have laughed-or the rewerse-it's according to your disposition-if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. At first I was helped-you'd never guess by what-milestones. I got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and say we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same upon the cart. An

other time I give her DOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. At first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty; but she caught the idea after long patience and trouble, and then we did get on swimmingly, I believe you! We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number.

The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands and laugh for joy.

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could give her.

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to speak to us, I says to him: "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor yet a dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her, in the shortest separation that can be named, state the figure for it, and I am game to put the money down. I won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There!" The gen tleman smiled, and then, " Well, well," says he, "I must first know what she has learnt already. How do you

communicate with her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote, in printed writing, many names of things, and so forth, and we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. "This is very extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her only teacher?" "I have been her only teacher, sir," I says, "besides herself." "Then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, “you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it.

We saw the gentleman four times in all. Finally says he, "Can you part with her for two years?"

"To do her good-yes, sir."

"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards her: "Can she part with you for two years?"

I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell.

Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look forward to, and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart, and what do you think I planned to do with it? I'll tell you. I planned to fit it up with shelves, and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where I