"You'll see it will come, though," says Miss Fossett, saying good-bye at the street-door. "She'll have a good cry about it when you're gone.... But oh dear!--what a lot of stories you have told that child, Yorick." "Of course I did. You put it on me, Addie, and then you sneak out! _I_ call it mean. But oh dear!--what a lot of stories one does have to tell children!" "You never tell them stories about anything you think serious. I know you don't." "Yes, I do. I tell them as matter of knowledge what I know to be only matter of belief. They wouldn't believe it if I didn't say I knew it." "But _you_ believe it?" "I do. But I don't know it. Good-bye, Addie! I shall keep my promise about the Hospital, though, and bring the news back. Cosset over the little woman and console her." Which Teacher really did to the best of her ability, but the fact is that though Lizarann was brave, she was inconsolable. And--what was bitterest of all--she felt that faith had been broken with her; which, coming home too late to Miss Fossett, made her think that it might have been better to tell a child of Lizarann's character the real reason why she wasn't to go to Daddy. It was a doubtful point, though. Besides, it was far from certain, after all, that she could have seen Daddy if she _had_ been taken to the Hospital. It would have been the worst result of all to fail in that, and have all the exposure for nothing. So the Rev. Athelstan--or Yorick--certainly thought, as he started to walk to St. Brides, meaning to avail himself of a townward-bound hansom if one should overtake him before he got to the tram. Omnibuses were all full, apparently, inside and out; and the opportunity of enjoying a rapid thaw was open to those who had for three weeks been praying for one. Streets overwhelmed with insufferable slush, and what was beautiful clean snow only a few hours since turned to torrents of an inkiness defying explanation. Roads that made even the sufferer by the slides we so enjoyed the making of in the early morning wish that he, too, was on our side, and could benefit by them, and knock double-knocks on them and never tumble. And see them now, turned to mere ill-mixed morass--floating pea-soup ankle-deep! Scavengers' carts that seemed to spill more than they removed, and persons of low ideals of energy losing sight of the objects for whose attainment they had been entrusted with brooms and rakes, and contented to do nothing particular with them, in rows. Malignant persons on roof-tops discharging wicked accumulations on unsuspecting heads, and shouting out "Be-low!" at the moment of impact. Butchers' carts coming as close to you as possible, to splash mud in your mouth and inside your collar, and reaching the horizon long before you become articulate to curse them. And then that saddest of all depressing sights, the skater who has been warned off the ice that won't be dangerous for another hour at least, and is going home swinging his skates and doubting the