R

ARTHUR MELVILLE.

AIN without, misery within, sad hearts, wretched

homes;-what more could be needed than these to

pourtray a picture in which happiness and love should be entirely wanting? Such is the picture now presented to our view; let us study it in all its details.

The room was a poor attic, cold and comfortless in the extreme, not a place calculated to elevate one's spirits, certainly; but rather to depress them. Outside, a drizzling rain fell, rendering the aspect of things indoors still more gloomy. About a stone's throw from this uninviting abode stood a large foundry, where some hundreds of men were employed; and the smoke arising from the chimneys, combined with the murky atmosphere and the dirty

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window panes, made the daylight within dim and uncertain.

The speaker, one of the occupants of the room, was a fine handsome boy of some eight or nine years, on whose delicately-moulded features there was an expression of irritability, almost of contemptuous indifference. His little sister, of whom he asked the question, a lovely child of eight, with soft blue eyes and golden curling hair, stood mournfully regarding the fast-falling rain.

Receiving no answer, he continued, "Kate, what o'clock is it? I believe you are asleep."

"No, I'm not, Artie dear; it is half-past ten."

"Half-past ten, and papa not yet come! I wonder what it all means. I say, Katie, how hateful it all is."

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Oh, Artie, don't! you know mamma said nothing was hateful that wasn't wicked; you shouldn't say so."

The childish voice quivered, and tears filled the blue eyes, at the mention of that beloved name.

"But I say it is hateful, and very hateful too, to be turned out of one's home, and that home such a one as ours: beside that, look here, Kate, we've had no breakfast, and I am desperately hungry."

The boy glanced at his poor surroundings, and his lip curled with intense disgust. To be sure, they were not at all inviting, the poor carpet, plain deal table, windsor chairs, and couch that had once been handsome, but was now almost too dilapidated to afford a safe seat even to little Kate. Added to this, the bare, unpapered walls, and rusty, fireless grate, were enough to chill the