Julia looked up. A young girl with soft, dark eyes, and lips dewy and red as the buds she coveted, stood a few paces off, with her hand grasped by a tall and stately looking man, approaching middle age, if not a year or two on the other side, who seemed anxious to hurry his companion into the carriage. "Step in, Florence, the girl can come to us!" said the man, restraining the eager girl, who had withdrawn her foot from the carriage steps. "Come, come, lady-bird, this is no place for us: see, half the crowd are looking this way." The young lady blushed and entered the carriage, followed by her impatient companion, who beckoned Julia towards him. "Here," he said, tossing a silver coin into her basket, "give me those buds, quick, and then get out of the way, or you will be trampled down." Julia held up her basket, half terrified by the impatience that broke from the dark eyes bent upon her. "There, sweet one, these might have ripened on your own smile: kiss them for my sake!" said the man, gently bending with his fragrant gift toward his lovely companion. His voice, soft, sweet and harmonious, fell upon the child's heart also; and while the tones melted into her memory, she shuddered as the flower may be supposed to shrink when a serpent creeps by. CHAPTER II. THE OLD COUPLE. There is no spot so dark on earth, But love can shed bright glimmers there, Nor anguish known, of human birth, That yieldeth not to faith and prayer. In the basement of a rear building in one of those cross streets that grow more and more squalid as they stretch down to the water's edge, sat an aged couple, at nightfall, on the day when our humble heroine was presented to the reader. The room was damp, low and dark; a couple of rude chairs, a deal table, and a long wooden chest were all the furniture it contained. A rough shelf ran over the mantel-piece, on which were arranged a half dozen unmatched cups and saucers, and a broken plate or two, and a teapot, minus half its spout, all scrupulously washed, and piled together with some appearance of ostentation. A brown platter, which stood on the table, contained the only approach to food that the humble dwelling afforded. A bone of bacon thrice picked, and preserved probably from a wretched desire to possess something in the shape of food, though that something was but a mockery, this and a fragment of bread lay upon the platter, covered with a neat crash towel.