As soon as he could crawl about, by the help of a stick, Harry's steps were directed to Gutter-alley, where, after a long and painful walk, he stood leaning against a wall for support, feeling deadly faint, for there was another funeral at Number 5. "From which room?" he asked huskily, for there was one of the court women at his side. "Second floor front," was the reply, and the young man groaned, impotent to ask further questions. "Is it--is it?" he could say no more; but the woman divined his thoughts. "No, no!" she answered eagerly, "the poor darling has been spared. It is the old man who is gone to his long home. Jenny has been about this fortnight now, and nursed the old man through it all." "Was it fever?" asked Harry, more for the sake of speaking than from curiosity, for he wanted to conceal his weakness as far as he could. "Some say it was; but I don't think so," she replied. "But you ought to be at home, with the rain falling like this. Why, you look fit to be in your bed and nowhere else." "Yes, yes," said Harry, "I'll go soon." "He was very old," said the woman; "I knew him years ago, when I lived over there, before he broke his leg. I've been to see Jenny, God bless her! She's half brokenhearted, and has now no one to look up to." Harry Smith, in spite of the inclement, wintry weather, stopped by the mouth of the court awaiting the coming of the funeral, and a faint flush came into his hollow cheeks as he thought of the woman's last words, and wondered whether Jenny would now choose a protector, and whether that protector would be John Wilson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STORY FOUR, CHAPTER SEVEN. Harry Smith, the very shadow of his former self, waited until the procession neared, and then stood aside to let the one sad woman pass to the shabby funeral carriage, after which he made his way back into the court, to listen to the narrative of the sad havoc worked by the disease while he had been tossing in delirium upon his own pallet. But he went home sad and yet happy, as he pondered upon some information he had gained from the neighbours; for he learned for certain that no one whose visits he had dreaded had passed up the court to Number 5.