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very carefully made acguainted by Mr. Brownlow, with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from Monks, and although they knew that the object of their present journey was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in endurance of the most intense suspense. | “The same kind friend had, with Mr. " Losberne’s assistance, cautiously stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that had so recently taken place. ‘Jt is quite true,” he said, " that they must know them before long, but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be ata worse.” So they travelled on in silence, each busied with reflections on the object which had brought them together, and no one disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all. But if Oliver, under these inferences, had remained silent, while they journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast when they turned into that which he had traversed on foot, a poor, houseless, wandering boy, without a iend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head. * See there — there,” cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose, and pointing out at the carriage-window, «that’s the stile I came over; there are the hedges I crept behind for fear any one should overtake me and force me back; yonder is the path across the fields leading to the old house when Í was a little child. Oh, Dick! Dick! my dear old friend, if I could only see you now 92 “You will see him soon,” replied Rose, gent'y taking his folded hands between er own. “ You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich you have grown, and that, in all your happiness, you have none so great as the coming back to make him happy too.” s Yes, yes,” said Oliver, “ and we’ll— we’ll take him away from here, and have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place, where he may grow strong and well—shall we ?” Rose nodded “yes;” for the boy was smiling through such happy tears that she could not speak. “ You will be kind and good to him, for vou are to every one,” said Oliver. “It 4 A 201 will make you cry, I know, to hear what he can tell, but never mind, never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again—I know that too—to think how changed he is; you did the same with me. He said, "God bless you’ to me when I ran away,” cried the boy with a burst of affectionate emotion, “ and I will say, " God bless you’ now, and show him how I love him for it !”’ As they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy within reasonable bounds. There was Sowerberry’s, the undertaker’s, just as it used to be, smaller and less imposing in appearance than he remembered it—all the well-known shops and houses, with almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected—Gamfield’s cart, the very cart ho used to have, standing at the old publichouse door—the workhouse, the dreary prison of his youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the streets— the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so foolish, then cried, then laughed again — scores of faces at the deors and windows that he knew quite well—nearly everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had been but a happy dream. But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality. They drove straight to the door of the up at with awe, and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur and pw and here was Mr. Grimwig, all ready to receive them, kissing the young lady and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as if he were the grandfather of the whole offering to eat his head —no, not once; not even when he contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and that time fast asleep. ‘There was dinner prepared, and there were bed-rooms ready, and everything was arranged, as if by magic. Notwithstanding all this, when the first half-hour was over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their journey down. Mr. Browniow did not join them at dinner, but remained in a separate room. ‘The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with anxious faces, and during the short intervals tha:
