Very like," said Joan; "'t all events, us can go in and see; 'tain't above five minutes out o' the way down by Ann Lisbeth's."

Adam looked at Eve.

"No," he said. "We'll get home first, and then I'll run down afterwards. I can see her foot's paining her."

"It's walking on it, I suppose," said Eve; adding, in a vexed tone, "I'm so sorry to be keeping all of you!"

"Stuff a' nonsense!" exclaimed Joan. "There ain't nothin' to be sorry for, except 'tis for yourself. Shall I go on, Adam?" she asked. "We might just so well, and leave you and Eve to follo'. I'll be home then so quick as you, or just after; and there'll be no needs for you toilin' down all that ways."

Adam looked his thanks for such undeserved good-nature; and after bidding them "Good-night!" the rest of the party started off, leaving Eve and Adam to come on at a slower pace.

"Do you know, I think I must take my shoe off," said Eve, quite hot with the pain caused her by the exertion of trying to keep up with the others, who, forgetful of her foot, had by degrees quickened into their ordinary pace.

"No, don't do that," said Adam; "it will be ever so much worse when you put it on again. Suppose you rested here for a minute. You might sit down," he added, seeing they were close by the low wall which divided Jowter's park from the road.

Eve gladly accepted the offer; the pain of her foot was making her feel sick and faint.

"You may depend you have given it a sprain," said Adam; "I can hardly feel the ankle-bone. Wait for a minute! I'll loosen the shoestring-that'll ease you a little ;" and he commenced trying to untie the rather complicated knot of ribbon.

"Oh, never mind untying it. If you've got a knife, cut it!" exclaimed Eve, impatient with pain.

And in another moment not only was the string cut, but, unable to resist the certainty of increased relief, the shoe, too, was off, lying on the ground.

"Oh, how good that is!" she sighed. I felt as if my foot must burst."

"Yes, I know what it is," said Adam, sympathetically. "I gave my foot an ugly twist once, coming along the rocks from Playdy Beach." "Ah, I don't wonder there; but here in the road, I can't think how it happened!"

"I only wonder it hasn't happened before," said Adam; "such a little tiny foot as it is!"

"Come, it's of no use trying to take me in with your flattery," said Eve. "I've been told all about you already."

"What do you mean, all about me?"

"Why, what a regular flirt you are, and how you try to make the girls think you are dying for them one week, and laugh at them for it the next. Ah! you see, I know all about you," she laughed triumphantly.

"Don't you give credit to any such lies," said Adam, energetically; "'cos it isn't true. I don't say I haven't carried on a bit with the maidens about, like other chaps; but, as for meaning anything by it, nothing could be further from my thoughts. But that's the way with the women; they're never contented unless they think you mean twenty times more than you say."

"And that's not your case, then?" laughed Eve. "What you say you mean, and what you mean you say, eh-is that it?" Not always; lately, if I'd been let, I should have said a great deal more than I have said. I've meant what 'tisn't easy perhaps to put into words."

"Come, come!" said Eve, quickly, "now you're getting out of your depth again; and it's quite time we were getting back, so give me my shoe!" and she held out her foot-and a very good-looking foot it was, clothed in its well-fitted grey knitted stocking.

Women of all classes were careful over the appearance of their feet in those days, when a pretty foot was reckoned hardly second to a pretty face.

The shoe was produced, but all fruitless were the endeavours to get it on. Adam turned down the heel, held open the sides, while Eve pulled at it with a vigour which might have done credit to Cinderella's rivals, but all to no effect. The shoe didn't go on, and the shoe wouldn't go on.

"Whatever's to be done?" she exclaimed, in dismay.

"You can't walk home without your shoe," exclaimed Adam.

"But I must," continued Eve.

"Your foot would be cut to pieces,” said Adam.

"There's but one

thing to be done," he added, after a moment's pause, "I must carry

you."

"Oh no!" said Eve. "Carry me! absurd nonsense!"

"Then how are you to get back?"

"I can't think."

"Nor I either; so come along. It's perfectly dark, nobody'll see you; and, if they do, what's the odds?"

"But you've no idea how heavy I am."

Oh, a tidy weight, I've no doubt; but I can get up most places with a couple of kegs slung to me, so I'll have a try, and at the worst I can but drop you in the road, you know."

Eve urged many more scruples, but, as while making them she

mounted the wall and arranged her dress, Adam gave them no heed: he directed her to lean her weight well over his shoulder and not to talk, and then off they set, Eve feeling more at her ease than she had conceived possible under so trying a situation.

"Don't you think I'd best walk now?" said she, as Adam rested for a moment before the little street leading up to Talland Lane. "No: how could you? the road's worse here than where we are come from. You don't want to walk, do you?"

"No; only I'm afraid of your being tired."

"Tired!" he said, resuming his burden; "I should like to carry you to the world's end."

And instead of reproving this idle wish, Eve only said, "Put me down before you open the door-in case anybody should be inside."

Fortunately, with the exception of two men who passed them with a stolid "good-night," they met no one. The night was dark, and on dark nights few people who had not a necessity cared to venture abroad; added to this, the air blew keen, so that most of the hatchdoors were closed, and the only gleam of light came from the redcurtained windows of the two public-houses which they passed on their way.

"I really don't know how to thank you, Adam," said Eve, earnestly; for, the little bridge crossed, she knew they were now close by the house.

"So you said before," he replied meaningly.

“No, but really now," persisted Eve; "this is quite different, you know."

"Oh, never mind," said Adam; "I'm content to take the same payment."

Now, Adam," and Eve gave him a reproving look.

"Come, that's pretty well," he said, "considering that if I'd been minded to I might have helped myself at every step we took." ""Twas good for you, though, you didn't," said Eve, as, having reached the door, she slid down on to the step.

"Was it !" he answered her absently; then with a sudden impulse, for his hand was on the latch, he turned, and whispering said: "Eve, what should you call it if all of a sudden seeing and talking to, and being near to, one person seemed more and more than anything else in the world-should you call it love?"

"I don't know," she faltered; "I don't know anything aboutbut before she could get out the word, the door from within was burst open by Joan, who exclaimed, in an excited voice:

"Well, here you be at last, poor sawls! come along in with 'ee, do. There's somebody waitin' to see 'ee; who d'ee think-eh,

Adam? Why, 'tis old Jerrem; iss, that's who 'tis. When I comed back I found un sittin' down waitin' for us."

And having thus far intercepted the meeting, she now drew on one side and admitted to view a young man, who came forward, and, holding out his hand, said in an awkward, constrained manner :

"Well, Adam, here I am at last; and how's the land lyin' with you ? "

Henri Murger.

"La Bohème est le stage de la vie artistique, c'est la préface de l'Académie, de l'Hôtel-Dieu, ou de la Morgue."— La Vie de Bohème.'

"Does it not seem to you, as to me, that you over?" said poor Murger to one of his friends.

have lived many times

There is an unconscious pathos in that simple question. It is eloquent of pain, of misery silently endured, of cares that made each day of the three hundred and sixty-five seem long as ten. Happy souls never rail at time as a laggard. For them the hours skim by on the rapid wings of the swallow. They are rosy-bosomed, and come in the train of Venus, these wanton daughters of Kronos. Golden, evanescent, laughter-led, they lightly mark their passage on the gracious dial of the flowers.

But for him who languishes under the world's neglect, who feels the grip of hunger, who buries his face in his pillow in a paroxysm of mute despair as he lies awake in the night-watches listening to the stealthy feet of Want creeping up the poor staircase to the door of his miserable garret, there is not one space of time, however infinitesimal, that does not add its load to the already well-nigh unbearable burden! Born in indigence; passing twenty years out of a brief thirty-eight between the attic and the hospital; hopeful, ardent, and industrious ; gay as a lark; faithful as a dog; honest as the daylight; poor as Job, behold the portrait of Henri Murger, poet, platonist, martyr—and Bohemian !

Monsieur notre lecteur (here we venture to address the refined individual who is doing us the honour to flutter our pages with his straw-coloured glove-tips, as he languidly puffs at an eighteenpenny Havannah), do you know what a Bohemian is? Permit us to explain for you. A Bohemian is a creature of disreputable tastes, who dines (when he does dine) in an old jacket out of elbows, who puts on a shirt a week and travels without a tub, who makes his entrance and his exit amid a wailing chorus of duns, debts, and difficulties-who is, in short, a selfish, needy citizen of that widespreading republic of dirt, dissoluteness, and disorder. Have we interpreted your meaning aright? You close your eyes indifferently (how is it possible that such a subject should interest you!) as you faintly nod your ambrosial locks, fresh from the brushes of Douglas. Now if we were to tell you that there are Bohemians who can meet man better dressed than themselves and