Rachel hastened away, followed by the derisive shout of the whole group. She turned down the first street she found; it was dark and silent, yet Rachel did not stop until she reached the very end of it; then she paused to breathe a while, but when she put her hand in her pocket for her handkerchief it was gone; with it had disappeared her purse, and two or three shillings. Rachel saw and understood it all--the friend of Molly, her officious deliverer, was a pick-pocket She hung down her head and sighed, dismayed and astonished, not at her loss, but at the sin. "Ah! dear Lord Jesus," she thought, full of sorrow, "that thou shouldst thus be crucified anew by the sins of thy people!" Then followed the perplexing inward question: "Oh! why is there so much sin?" "God knows best," was the inward reply, and once more calm and serene, Rachel went on. At first, she hardly knew where she was. She stood in a dark thoroughfare where three streets met--three narrow streets that scarcely broke on the surrounding gloom. Hesitatingly she took the first. It happened to be that which she wanted. When Rachel recognized it, her pace slackened, her heart beat, her colour came and went, she was much moved; she prayed too--she prayed with her whole heart, but she walked very slowly. And thus she reached at length a lonely little street not quite so gloomy as that which she had been following. She paused at the corner shop for a moment. It was a second-hand ironmonger's; rusty iron locks, and rusty tongs and shovels, and rusty goods of every description kept grim company to tattered books and a few old pictures, that had contracted an iron look in their vicinity. A solitary gas-light lit the whole. Rachel stopped and looked at the books, and at the pictures, but only for a few seconds. If she stood there, it was not to gaze with passing curiosity on those objects; she knew them all of old, as she knew every stone of that street; it was to wait until the flush of her cheek had subsided, and the beating of her heart had grown still. At length she went on. When she reached the middle of the street she paused; she stood near a dark house, shrouded within the gloom of its doorway. Opposite her, on the other side of the way, was a small shop lit from within. From where she stood, Rachel could see everything that passed in that abode. A carpenter lived there, for the place was full of rough deal boards standing erect against the wall, and the floor was heaped high with shavings. Presently a door within opened, the master of the shop entered it, and set himself to work by the light of a tallow candle. He was a tall, thin man, grey-headed and deeply wrinkled, but strong and hale for his years. As he bent over his work, the light of the candle vividly defined his angular figure and sharp features. Rachel looked at him; her eyes filled with tears, she brushed them away with her hand, for they prevented her from seeing, but they returned thicker and faster.