CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 523. OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1874. THE LILY OF THE ALLEY. IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.-A LOST TREASURE. 'WHAT's the matter? What's the matter?' cried a stout, ruddy, white-haired old gentleman, as he shouldered his way through the circumference of a small human circle, from the centre of which towered a policeman's helmet. What's the matter, policeman, eh?' repeated the old gentleman, when he had reached the side of the stalwart constable. PRICE 1d. however, and was dressed neatly, and even handsomely; her white dress and white stockings seemed to be of good material, and quite new; her shoes were well made, and hardly worn at all; the semicircular comb that confined her hair might possibly be real tortoise-shell; and the necklace she occasionally lifted to her mouth and chewed reflectively, looked very like genuine coral. She just glanced at the old gentleman whom the policeman had addressed, and then turned back to her constabular friend, whom she seized by both whiskers, and asked to be taken home. 'Ah! I see lost!' said the old gentleman. The constable turned his head slowly and delib-'Can't she tell you her name and where she lives?' erately, and surveyed the questioner with a scrutiLising eye, after the manner of 'the force,' when the amount of civility to be thrown into a reply is under consideration. The scrutiny must have satisfied the intelligent officer that he had been accosted by one who not enly paid heavy rent, rates, and taxes, and probably kept a comfortable woman-cook, but also, out of pecial regard and admiration for the force,' was kely to indulge in the pastime of 'forking out;' the touched his helmet with his unoccupied and, and, alluding to something he held with other hand and arm, said, with a pleasant mile: 'It's all along of this little darlin'.' And a little darling it certainly was. A little ir, about four years old, tenderly grasped in the leman's strong arm, was lolling carelessly over his shoulder, pulling his whiskers, and stroking his face, whilst he was holding her and coaxing her as gently as if she had been his own little daughter. She was a pale, fragile bit of a thing; but as pretty as a fairy. On her fair cheeks were two shiny traces of the tears which had only just ceased trickling from her large blue eyes; but her eyes were now hing happily, and her lips were chirruping Lemily as she nestled confidingly against her protector's brawny chest, and tipped his helmet back over his ears, and drew his hair down upon his forehead, and produced broad grins of good-humoured | 'Listen to this here!' replied the constable. And he proceeded to examine the little urchin. 'What's your name, dearie ?' 'Didn't I tell oo, Lily!' she answered. 'In de alley, I tell oo.' 'But which alley, my darlin'? There's such a many alleys. Can't ye remember who lives there, or what they do there, or something that's took place there? Tell us something about it. What's it like, now?' 'Well, I'll tell oo. Mammy says it's just like de valley of de shadder of dess. Dere was de bad man dat lived on gin, and beat de por woman wid de poker.' 'That 'ere man lives in every alley in London,' said the constable gloomily to the old gentleman. 'It ain't no use to ask the poor little dear any more. 'What do you propose to do with her, then?' inquired the old gentleman. "Take her into custody, to be sure,' answered the constable; and he added, with a multitude of winks and comic contortions to enforce his irony: 'We'll run her in-that's what we'll do.' 'You'll take her to the police-station?' said the old gentleman interrogatively. 'Ah! that's best for her,' was the answer. amusement and satisfaction upon his usually in' in the streets without any visible means o' subolid countenance. She was scrupulously clean, sistence; and p'r'aps she'll get a month with 'ard VOL XI. e labour,' responded the policeman with an explosion of laughter at his own facetiousness. 6 'You'll take care of her,' pleaded the old gentleman gently, as he placed money in the policeman's hand: those few shillings will help to pay expenses.' 'Bless your kind 'eart, sir,' replied the constable, pocketing the gift; it'll be more than enough. My missis 'll take charge of her, and be pleased to do it. We'll 'ave bills put up, "Child found," at all the metropolitan stations, and she 'll be claimed in a trice, I know.' And away drove the cab with its three occupants The child almost immediately fell asleep on th decent body's lap; the old gentleman amused him self by looking out of the window; and the woman for the first two or three hundred yards, appeared to be in a brown-study. At last she said mildly as she touched the old gentleman's sleeve: 'I beg pardon, sir.' 'What for?' was the rejoinder. 'Well, sir, I was a-going to look in on a friend. if we had walked, as lives all in the way, just to give her a message.' 'You'll not be long, I suppose?' 'Not a minute, sir.' Just as he ceased speaking, there appeared a respectable-looking woman of middle age, clad in rusty black, with a clean linen collar turned down 'Stop the cab, then, when you want to get out.” about her neck, and with the anxious expression of It was now quite dark; the woman had wrapped a hard-worked and underpaid mother of a family. up in her black shawl the little girl, who was in a Whence she had come, nobody had noticed; she deep sleep; and, when the cab was duly stopped might have just cropped up, or she might have at the entrance of a narrow court, she stepped out been standing by, and heard all that was said. At with her burden in her arms, merely saying: 'Back anyrate, she now made her way up to the spot in a minute, sir.' where the constable and the old gentleman were parleying, and, clasping her hands, exclaimed: Why, how, in the name o' patience, did you get here, child? Your poor mammy just will be in a taking.' 'Oh! you know her, do you?' said the old gentleman with an air of relief. 'Know her!' cried the woman with a smile: 'why, she's little Lily that lives in the alley.' 'Dat's me!' screamed the child joyously-Lily what live in de alley. Take me 'ome, p'ease.' 'That I will, darling,' said the woman. 'Come along home to mammy; it's getting dark, and mammy 'll be frightened.-Give her to me, sir,' she added, turning to the policeman. 'Well, I dunnow,' observed that cautious functionary, at the same time setting down the child. 'What do you say, sir?' he inquired of the old gentleman. 'She seems to be a very decent body,' rejoined the old gentleman in a low tone. 'Ask her if she can give any address.' The woman at once produced a card, upon which there was printed information to the effect that Mrs Brown, widow, performed a number of duties, useful to the community, at No. 4 Chequers Alley, which, it appeared from the card, was situated in a well-known lane in the east end of London. "That's a good three mile from 'ere,' grumbled the policeman. "Ow did that little creature get all this way off?' 'She got a lift in a cart or something, you may depend,' replied the woman. But,' she went on, bridling up, it's no favour to me to take her; I'll leave her to you, and welcome; only, as I'm a-going to the very place' I think it's very kind of you,' interrupted the old gentleman.-'She really seems to be a very decent body, policeman, he added in an under tone. 'Well, sir,' rejoined the policeman a little discontentedly, it'll cert'nly save a deal o' trouble; there's a difficulty about leavin' my beat, and' 'I'll tell you what, policeman,' broke in the old gentleman decisively: 'I'll take a cab, and go with her myself.' 'That's your ticket, sir !' exclaimed the policeman joyously; and he at once hailed a four-wheeled cab, into which he bundled the old gentleman, the decent body, and the little maid. It was a long minute; it was a full quarter of an hour before the old gentleman grew fidgety, left the cab, paid the driver, who had become suspicious, and declined to wait without payment, and walked down the court, which he found led into a perfect labyrinth of streets. He inquired diligently after the decent body with a child in her arms, but could get no trustworthy information; nearly everybody, decent or not, in those parts carried a child in her arms. So he was forced, having consulted a policeman, to conclude that it was a trick, and he went home heavy at heart. After his dinner, he sat and pondered until the night was far advanced. Meanwhile, on either side of a deal table, drawn close to a good fire, which burned in a high grate in a squalid room of a house situated not far from Wapping, sat a man and a woman conversing and drinking from stemless wine-glasses a liquor which, if it were not neat gin, belied its colour and its smell. They both looked highly, or rather lowly respectable; for their clothes were black and dingy, but they were themselves perfectly clean, and just a cut, to speak from the worldly point of view, above piety clothed in rags, which, as we know, always commands, or ought to command, respect. In a corner of the room was a heap of straw, which heaved and rustled with regularity, as if some sleeping creature, a dog, perhaps, were rolled up in it. Close by the straw was a bundle of rags and close by the rags was a pair of tiny boots, full of holes, short of buttons, meagre of sole. On the deal table lay a smart white frock; divers under-garments, of good texture and little wear, and child's size; a pair of stockings, just the length and breadth to fit into a neat and almost new pair of little shoes standing handy; a semicircular tortoise-shell comb, a coral necklace, and other articles. The man and woman were evidently talking about something that amused them immensely, for they frequently paused to have a good laugh. 'And he give yer ten shillings for your trouble, afore you got out o' the keb?' chuckled the man. 'As soon as ever we got in,' counter-chuckled the woman. 'So that you'd ha' been ten shillings to the good, anyways,' remarked the man. 'Anyways,' assented the woman. 'But them |