the tails of Phil's coat, the superior half of Mr. Firmin's body is stretching out of the window. Now, you may speak of a man behind his back, but not to him. So Mr. Jarman withdraws, and addresses himself, face to face, to somebody else in the company. I daresay he abuses that upstart, impudent, bumptious young doctor's son. Have I not owned that Philip was often very rude? and tonight he is in a specially bad humour.

As he continues to stare into the street, who is that who has just reeled up to the railings below, and is talking in at Mrs. Brandon's window? Whose blackguard voice and laugh are those which Phil recognises with a shudder? It is the voice and laugh of our friend Mr. Hunt, whom Philip left not very long since, near his father's house in Old Parr Street; and both of those familiar sounds are more vinous, more odious, more impudent than they were even two hours ago.

"Holloa! I say!" he calls out with a laugh and a curse. "Pst! Mrs. What-d'you-call-'em! Hang it! don't shut the window. Let a fellow in!" and as he looks towards the upper window, where Philip's head and bust appear dark before the light, Hunt cries out, "Holloa! what game's up now, I wonder? Supper and ball. Shouldn't be surprised." And he hiccups a waltz tune, and clatters time to it with his dirty boots.

"Mrs. What - d'you - call! Mrs. B-!" the sot then recommences to shriek out. "Must see you-most particular business. Private and confidential. Hear of something to your advantage.” And rap, rap, rap, he is now thundering at the door. In the clatter of twenty voices few hear Hunt's noise except Philip; or, if they do, only imagine that another of Ridley's guests is arriving.

At the hall-door there is talk and altercation, and the high shriek of a well-known odious voice. Philip moves quickly from his window, shoulders friend Jarman at the studio door, and hustling past him obtains, no doubt, more good wishes from that ingenious artist. Philip is so rude and overbearing that I really have a mind to depose him from his place of hero-only, you see, we are committed. His name is on the page overhead, and we can't take it down and put up another. The Little Sister is standing in her hall by the just opened door, and remonstrating with Mr. Hunt, who appears to wish to force his way in.

"Pooh! shtuff, my dear! If he's here I musht see himparticular business-get out of that!" and he reels forward and against little Caroline's shoulder.

"Get away, you brute, you!" cries the little lady. "Go home, Mr. Hunt; you are worse than you were this morning." She is a resolute little woman, and puts out a firm little arm against

this odious invader. She has seen patients in hospital raging in fever: she is not frightened by a tipsy man. "La! is it you, Mr. Philip? Who ever will take this horrid man? He ain't fit to go upstairs among the gentlemen; indeed he ain't."

"You said Firmin was here-and it isn't the father. It's the cub! I want the Doctor. Where's the Doctor?" hiccups the chaplain, lurching against the wall; and then he looks at Philip with bloodshot eyes, that twinkle hate. "Who wantsh you, I shlike to know? Had enough of you already to-day. Conceited brute. Don't look at me in that sortaway! I ain't afraid of youain't afraid anybody. Time was when I was a young man fight you as soon as look at you. I say, Philip!" "Go home, now.

landlady.

Do go home, there's a good man," says the

"I say! Look here-hic-hi! Philip! On your word as a gentleman, your father's not here? He's a sly old boots, Brummell Firmin is-Trinity man-I'm not a Trinity man-Corpus man. I say, Philip, give us your hand. Bear no malice. Look heresomething very particular. After dinner-went into Air Streetyou know-rouge gagne, et couleur-cleaned out. Cleaned out, on the honour of a gentleman and master of arts of the University of Cambridge. So was your father-no, he went out in medicine. I say, Philip, hand us out five sovereigns, and let's try the luck again! What, you won't! It's mean, I say. Don't be mean."

"Oh, here's five shillings! Go and have a cab. Fetch a cab for him, Virgilio, do!" cries the mistress of the house.

"That's not enough, my dear!" cries the chaplain, advancing towards Mrs. Brandon, with such a leer and air, that Philip, half choked with passion, runs forward, grips Hunt by the collar, and crying out, "You filthy scoundrel! as this is not my house, I may kick you out of it !"—in another instant has run Hunt through the passage, hurled him down the steps, and sent him sprawling into the kennel.

"Row down below," says Rosebury placidly, looking from above. "Personal conflict. Intoxicated individual in gutter. Our impetuous friend has floored him."

Hunt, after a moment, sits up and glares at Philip. He is not hurt. Perhaps the shock has sobered him. He thinks, perhaps, Philip is going to strike again. "Hands off, BASTARD!" shrieks out the prostrate wretch.

"O Philip, Philip! he's mad, he's tipsy!" cries out the Little Sister, running into the street. She puts her arms round Philip. "Don't mind him, dear-he's mad! Policeman! The gentleman has had too much. Come in, Philip; come in!"

She took him into her little room. She was pleased with the gallantry of the boy. She liked to see him just now standing over her enemy, courageous, victorious, her champion. "La! how savage he did look; and how brave and strong you are! But the little wretch ain't fit to stand before such as you!" And she passed her little hand down his arm, of which the muscles were all in a quiver from the recent skirmish.

“What did the scoundrel mean by calling me bastard?" said Philip, the wild blue eyes glaring round about with more than ordinary fierceness.

"Nonsense, dear! Who minds anything he says, that beast? His language is always horrid; he's not a gentleman. He had had too much this morning when he was here. What matters what he says? He won't know anything about it to-morrow. But it was kind of my Philip to rescue his poor little nurse, wasn't it? Like a novel. Come in, and let me make you some tea. Don't go to no more smoking: you have had enough. Come in and talk to me."

him, she watches him; she fills
She talks-talks in her homely
It is a wonder how she prattles
She won't see Phil's eyes, which

And, as a mother, with sweet pious face, yearns to her little children from her seat, she fondles her tea-pot from her singing kettle. way, and on this subject and that. on, who is generally rather silent. are following her about very strangely and fiercely. And when again he mutters, "What did he mean by- "La, my dear, how cross you are!" she breaks out. "It's always so; you won't be happy without your cigar. Here's a cheroot, a beauty! Pa brought it home from the club. A China captain gave him some. You must light it at the little end. There!" And if I could draw the picture which my mind sees of her lighting Phil's cheroot for him, and smiling the while, the little innocent Delilah coaxing and wheedling this young Samson, I know it would be a pretty picture. I wish Ridley would sketch it for me.

O

CHAPTER XII

DAMOCLES

N the next morning, at an hour so early that Old Parr Street was scarce awake, and even the maids who wash the broad

steps of the houses of the tailors and medical gentlemen who inhabit that region had not yet gone down on their knees before their respective doors, a ring was heard at Dr. Firmin's night-bell, and when the door was opened by the yawning attendant, a little person in a grey gown and a black bonnet made her appearance, handed a note to the servant, and said the case was most urgent and the Doctor must come at once. Was not Lady Humandhaw the noble person whom we last mentioned, as the invalid about whom the Doctor and the nurse had spoken a few words on the previous evening? The Little Sister, for it was she, used the very same name to the servant, who retired grumbling to waken up his master and deliver the note.

Nurse Brandon sat a while in the great gaunt dining-room where hung the portrait of the Doctor in his splendid black collar and cuffs, and contemplated this masterpiece, until an invasion of housemaids drove her from the apartment, when she took refuge in that other little room to which Mrs. Firmin's portrait had been consigned.

"That's like him ever so many years and years ago," she thinks. "It is a little handsomer; but it has his wicked look that I used to think so killing, and so did my sisters, both of them-they were ready to tear out each other's eyes for jealousy. And that's Mrs. Firmin! Well, I suppose the painter haven't flattered her. If he have she could have been no great things, Mrs. F. couldn't." And the Doctor, entering softly by the opened door and over the thick Turkey carpet, comes up to her noiselessly, and finds the Little Sister gazing at the portrait of the departed lady.

"Oh, it's you, is it? I wonder whether you treated her no better than you treated me, Dr. F. I've a notion she's not the only one. She don't look happy, poor thing!" says the little lady.

"What is it, Caroline?" asks the deep-voiced Doctor; "and what brings you so early?"

The Little Sister then explains to him. "Last night after he

went away Hunt came sure enough. He had been drinking. He was very rude, and Philip wouldn't bear it. Philip had a good courage of his own and a hot blood. And Philip thought Hunt was insulting her, the Little Sister. So he up with his hand and down goes Mr. Hunt on the pavement. Well, when he was down he was in a dreadful way, and he called Philip a dreadful name."

"A name? what name?" Then Caroline told the Doctor the name Mr. Hunt had used; and if Firmin's face usually looked wicked, I daresay it did not seem very angelical when he heard how this odious name had been applied to his son. "Can he do Philip a mischief?" Caroline continued. "I thought I was bound to tell his father. Look here, Dr. F., I don't want to do my dear boy a harm. But suppose what you told me last night isn't true-as I don't think you much mind!—mind—saying things as are incorrect, you know, when us women are in the case. But suppose when you played the villain, thinking only to take in a poor innocent girl of sixteen, it was you who were took in, and that I was your real wife after all? There would be a punishment!"

"I should have an honest and good wife, Caroline," said the Doctor, with a groan.

"This would be a punishment, not for you, but for my poor Philip," the woman goes on. "What has he done, that his honest name should be took from him-and his fortune perhaps? I have been lying broad awake all night thinking of him. Ah, George Brandon! Why, why did you come to my poor old father's house, and bring this misery down on me, and on your child unborn?" "On myself, the worst of all," says the Doctor. "You deserve it. But it's us innocent that has had, or will have, to suffer most. O George Brandon! Think of a poor child, flung away, and left to starve and die, without even so much as knowing your real name! Think of your boy, perhaps brought to shame and poverty through your fault!"

"Do you suppose I don't often think of my wrong?" says the Doctor. "That it does not cause me sleepless nights, and hours of anguish? Ah! Caroline!" and he looks in the glass. "I am not shaved, and it's very unbecoming," he thinks; that is, if I may dare to read his thoughts, as I do to report his unheard words.

say

"You think of your wrong now it may be found out, I dare! " says Caroline. "Suppose this Hunt turns against you? He is desperate; mad for drink and money; has been in gaol-as he said this very night to me and my papa. He'll do or say anything. If you treat him hard, and Philip have treated him hard— not harder than served him right, though—he'll pull the house down and himself under it but he'll be revenged. Perhaps he drank