The horse was very old, the caravan very dilapidated. As it was dragged slowly along the country roads it shook and creaked and wheezed, protesting, as it were, that it had performed its duty in life and that its long labors justly entitled it to permanent repose. The horse, with its burden behind it, had long ago given over complaining, and, although its plight was no less woful, was demonstrative only through physical compulsion. With drooping head, lustreless eyes, and laboring breath, it plodded on, with many a longing look at tempting morsels out of its reach.

At ten o'clock on this morning Captain Ablewhite, unannounced, and without knocking at the door, walked into Jeremiah's room in the hotel at which he had taken up his quarters. Jeremiah was still in bed. Closing the door carefully behind him and turning the key, Captain Ablewhite drew a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.

In the heart of a very maze of courts and lanes Stoney-alley proclaims itself. It is one of multitude of deformed thoroughfares, which are huddled together--by whim, or caprice, or in mockery--in a populous part of the City, in utter defiance of all architectural rules. It is regarded as an incontrovertible law, that everything must have a beginning; and Stoney-alley could not have been an exception to this law.

In Dropmore Beeches, near Beddington, county of Surrey, stands a red brick mansion, in the Gothic style, known as Parksides. It is situated on the outskirts of an estate of forty acres, comprised of a few acres of cover, and, for the rest, of shrubberies, meadow-land, and a wilderness wood, upon the arrangement of which great care had been bestowed and a vast amount of money expended. This was in the old days, when the house had been occupied by a family of good standing, the heirs of which had resided in it for many generations. Pride was taken in it then, and it was deservedly renowned for...

The innocent fun and gaiety at the tea-table were long afterward remembered. There was an animated discussion as to who should take the head of the table. Ph be wanted Aunt Leth to do so, but Fanny interfered, and said no one should sit there but Ph be."

On a bright, snowy night in December, 1871, Dr. Spenlove, having been employed all the afternoon and evening in paying farewell visits to his patients, walked briskly towards his home through the narrowest and most squalid thoroughfares in Portsmouth. The animation of his movements may be set down to the severity of the weather, and not to any inward cheerfulness of spirits, for as he passed familiar landmarks, he looked at them with a certain regret, which men devoid of sentiment would have pronounced an indication of a weak nature. In this opinion, however, they would have been wrong, for...