She returned--but it was after two hours had passed; and Ned Wilcom, who, when he entered London, believed himself heir to a gentleman's fortune and rank, had become the slave of a prostitute, and had pledged himself to take lessons from her in the practice of dishonesty. That very afternoon, he entered on his guilty profession: she hung on his arm, and as they entered a crowded thoroughfare she taught him to purloin, successively, a handkerchief, a book, and a watch, from the pockets of passengers. The perfect security with which his first thefts were accomplished, and the galling remembrance of his past indignities, added to the new fascination above mentioned, stifled the reproaches of Ned Wilcom's conscience, when the hour of reflection came. He advanced in the downward path, until he became a daring burglar, and a skilful adept at swindling, under the name of card-playing, in addition to his more petty practice on pockets. Some idea of his son's fate, at length reached the brutal and sordid mind of Wilcom the elder. He commissioned a friend, two or three times, on his London journies, to make strict inquiry as to the accuracy of the reports concerning Ned. The youth avoided the search as much as possible, but could not prevent the truth from reaching his native town. The catastrophe approached in another year. The papers contained an account of Ned's apprehension for a series of daring robberies: his father's acquaintances boldly and honestly reprehended his unparental cruelty; and though the Mammon-worshipping wretch was unmoved for some time, at length he dashed up to town to "see what all the noise was about," as he said. He arrived soon enough to see his son at the bar as a degraded criminal; and before he had gazed upon him for more than five minutes, heard him sentenced to transportation for life! Ned was immediately reconducted to his cell, while his father fell, senseless, in the Court; and though he was taken home to Leeds the following week, it was to be a helpless, doting paralytic, and a proverb to the end of his life. LONDON 'VENTURE; OR, THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN.