At the sight of the bank note Mr. Evans's pleasant face became a little clouded. He did not relish the notion of changing notes for persons with whom he had no previous acquaintance. But after he had taken the note in his hand and held it between his eyes and the light, and flattened it out on the counter, his cheerful expression returned, and he said, "All right, sir. I'll change it and welcome! I know where you got this note, sir! Ah, you may start, but I do! You got it from our post-office, lower down the street; here's the post-office stamp on it which they're compelled to put on every note passing through their hands. Look, 'Amherst, B. 1, Jan. 30.' Thank you, sir; six and six's, three and seven is ten; thank you, sir!" and the old man, having counted the change from a cash-box in a desk at the back of the shop, hurried round to open the door and bow his customer out. Within half an hour George Dallas was in the train on his return to London. CHAPTER III. THE PHILISTINES. The cold weather, which in the country produced rugged roads and ice-bound ponds; which frosted the leafless branches of the trees with a silver tint, and gave a thousand different fantastic but ever lovely hues and shapes to nature; had no such pleasant refreshing effect in London, where the frost, ere three hours old, was beaten into mud under foot, ran drizzling in dirty streams from house-tops, and subsided into rain and fog before the daylight had disappeared. The day succeeding that on which George Dallas had entered the town of Amherst was a thorough specimen of what London can do when put to its worst. It was bad in the large thoroughfares where the passing crowds jostled each other ill-temperedly, digging at each other's umbrellas, and viciously contesting every inch of foot pavement, where the omnibus-wheels revolved amid mud-ruts, and every passing cab-horse produced a fountain of slush and spray. But it was even worse in the bystreets, where an attempt at sweeping had been made, where the mud lay in a thick slimy, shiny tide between the narrow ridges of footpath, where the tall houses, so close together that they completely filtered the air and light and retained nothing but the darkness and the dirt, were splashed with mud to their first-floor windows, and whose inhabitants or visitors desirous of crossing the road had to proceed to the junction with the main street, and, after tacking across in comparative cleanliness, commence their descent on the opposite side.