Cold and hunger now began to exercise a sensible influence upon the fragile frame of Ada. Her step became languid and slow, and she began to feel that her strength was fast deserting her. Her dislike to return to Jacob Gray was very great, and yet where else in that great city could she find a place whereon to lay her aching limbs? The sense of her own extreme destitution came vividly across her imagination, and had it not been for the curious gaze of the early passengers she met, she could have wept freely in her bitterness of heart. Listlessly she walked onwards, and thought, from its very intensity, became at last a positive pain. Money she had none; and, in fact, so secluded from the world had she been kept by the fears of Jacob Gray, that she would not have known how to procure the means of supporting life, even had she possessed valuable property about her. A cold, glaring winter’s sun shone forth from a clear sky, mocking the earth with an appearance of warmth, which made the sharp wind that whistled round the corners of the streets seem doubly keen and piercing. “Must I return to that dismal house?” thought Ada—“must I again throw myself on the mercy of that man who calls himself my father?” She paused in doubt and irresolution, and no one who passed could fail to mark the air of deep dejection which sat upon the pale anxious face of the young girl. It so chanced that she stopped opposite to the shop-door of a jeweller and dealer in precious stones, in Parliament-street, and as she clung to the little wooden rail that guarded the window, she saw the keen, sparkling eyes of an old man fixed on her from within. His beard and general appearance proclaimed him a Jew, and scarcely had Ada shrank from his gaze, and paused a step or two onwards, when she heard a voice behind her saying,— “My dear, will you sell that necklace?” Ada turned quickly. The old man from the shop stood before her, and repeated his question. “Will you sell that necklace?” “Necklace?” said Ada. “Yes; the little necklace you have round your pretty little neck, my dear.” Ada now recollected that among her female attire she had found the necklace; and hastily clasped it on when dressing, to elude the search of Jacob Gray’s furious visitors. “I am tired and hungry,” said Ada. “Are you indeed. Bless me!” cried the old man. “Walk into my shop. You see I am an old man. Walk in—do walk in.” Ada suffered herself to be led into the little shop, and unclasping the necklace, she said— “Will it fetch me a meal?” “A meal?” said the jeweller, and his eyes sparkled as he took the necklace. “A meal? Why it’s real—no, I mean mock—mock pearls—” “And valueless?” said Ada. “No—no—not quite—not quite, my dear. Here is a new guinea—a bright new guinea!” Ada took the coin, and said, languidly— “Alas! I am so strange here, I know not even how to dispose of this to procure me food.” “Indeed?” said the jeweller. “Do you know nobody? Have you no friends?”