"I was trying to read how it will all end--what is to be my fortune," said Patty; and she turned with a sad smile towards her questioner, and passed one plump arm round Janet's frail waist. "And you? can you read your fortune there?" "No need--no need," said Janet, sadly. "There are no good fairies now, Patty, to touch the deformed with their wand and make them straight and bright. I know my fortune--to be looked upon with aversion to the end. But there must be no more trifling," she said, fiercely. "You must not come to us any more. He has been tempted into coming and spending his foolish money in the expectation of seeing you; but he must be kept away now." They rode on in silence for some time, during which D. Wragg had his hands pretty full with the horse, which seemed to have taken a sudden desire to see whether the left-hand hedge was black-thorn or white; and baulked in his desire to investigate on that side, made a desperate effort to reach the right. This, however, was also checked, and he settled down once more into a slow jig-jog of the most somnolent nature for those who were behind. "I am not so mad," said Janet, softly, after a while, "that I do not know what is just and right. He shall speak no more to my darling. For, in my strange, uncouth, wild way, Patty, I love you, not as I might a sister, but with something of the desire a mother must feel for her little one." And then there was silence and sadness as the two girls sat hand-in-hand till the first straggling gaslights were visible, sitting with out another word till Monsieur Canau helped them to alight, and then saw Patty safely to the door of the Duplex Street house, where the end of Patty's day out was a sigh and many tears. Volume 2, Chapter XIII. JANET A LISTENER. Janet went to her lonely room, sad and sinking of heart, to kneel upon a box by the window, gazing out above the house-tops, as if her wishes were far away in the country from which she had so lately returned. An hour passed like this, and then from below there came the sound of voices in altercation, followed almost directly after by the noise of a struggle. Then, as she stood trembling, there were the panting, hard breathing, and half-stifled ejaculations of those who seemed to be engaged, and then utter silence. Janet crept back to her box, for the sound of quarrel and fight was no uncommon one in Brownjohn Street, and again she knelt there thinking-- thinking always, with her glittering eyes hot and aching. But now came the sounds again, and, startled and nervous, she ran to her door, which she opened, and then stood out upon the landing, for the voices seemed to come from down-stairs, at the street-door, and one of these she recognised as that of D. Wragg, the other belonging to the heavy young man who had of late taken so much interest in the contents of the dealer's shop.