again, and to come often, and she said gaily she intended to, for Lizzie and she were sisters already. When they were gone--Mr. Sheldrake accompanied Lily and Alfred home--Mr. Musgrave and Lizzie sat up for a little while talking, and he told her how pleased he was she had made such a friend. That night when he went to his bedroom, he took from a place of concealment two time-honoured friends--to wit, two flat bottles, in which he had been in the habit of carrying away his gin from the public-house. With these under his arm he stole down to the garden, and hurled them over the wall as far as his strength would allow him, thus bidding good-bye to them. On that night before he retired to rest, he knelt by his bedside for the first time for many, many years, and thought, if he did not say, a prayer. Mr. Sheldrake noticed a change in him, and commented on it. "Why, Muzzy," he said, "you have grown quite respectable." "I hope it does not displease you, sir," was Mr. Musgrave's reply. "No, indeed," said Mr. Sheldrake; "it is a compliment to me, for I think I have had something to do with it." "Yes, sir, you have." Mr. Sheldrake clapped him on the shoulder. "Never too late to mend, eh, old man?" "I hope not, sir." And yet it is to be doubted whether Mr. Sheldrake was quite pleased at this remarkable change in his servant. He liked to hold a power over a man, and if that power sprung from a man's weakness, or even vice, he was all the more gratified, so long as it did not affect him. There was no doubt, however, that Mr. Musgrave was endeavouring to become a respectable member of society, and that he had, in real sober earnest, turned over the new leaf which Mr. Sheldrake had proposed to him. On a cold evening in March, Lily and Old Wheels were sitting in their room in the little house in Soho. There was no change in its appearance. The portraits of Lily were on the mantelshelf, and a bouquet of flowers was on the table. The old man was making castors for a little cigar cabinet which he had bought second-hand at a shop a day or two before. He had cut holes in the bottom of the cabinet, so that the castors were almost hidden from sight, and he had devised a false bottom so as not to interfere with the usefulness of the box. His work being done, he put his tools aside, and rolled the cabinet towards Lily, asking her what she thought of it, and whether Felix would not be pleased with it. "O, then," said Lily, with a faint smile, "it is for Felix. You did not tell me that. I was wondering whom it was for." "Are you glad or sorry, Lily, that I am going to make Felix a present?" "Glad." "I don't know what I should do now without him," said Old Wheels, with assumed carelessness, but really watching Lily's face with more of keenness than his words warranted; "I am so used to his coming in here often, and have so grown to like him, that if he were to go away I should feel quite lost."