"Forgive me, Miss Ulver," exclaimed Pierre, with sudden warmth, and yet most marked respect; "forgive me; never yet have I entered the city by night, but, somehow, it made me feel both bitter and sad. Come, be cheerful, we shall soon be comfortably housed, and have our comfort all to ourselves; the old clerk I spoke to you about, is now doubtless ruefully eying his hat on the peg. Come, cheer up, Isabel;-'tis a long ride, but here we are, at last. Come! 'Tis not very far now to our welcome."

"I hear a strange shuffling and clattering," said Delly, with a shudder.

"It does not seem so light as just now," said Isabel.

"Yes," returned Pierre, "it is the shop-shutters being put on; it is the locking, and bolting, and barring of windows and doors; the town's-people are going to their rest."

"Please God they may find it!" sighed Delly.

"They lock and bar out, then, when they rest, do they, Pierre?" said Isabel.

"Yes, and you were thinking that does not bode well for the welcome I spoke of."

"Thou read'st all my soul; yes, I was thinking of that. But whither lead these long, narrow, dismal side-glooms we pass every now and then? What are they? They seem terribly still. I see scarce any body in them;-there's another, now. See how haggardly look its criss-cross, far-separate lamps.-What are these side-glooms, dear Pierre; whither lead they?"

"They are the thin tributaries, sweet Isabel, to the great Orinoco thoroughfare we are in; and like true tributaries, they come from the far-hidden places; from under dark beetling secrecies of mortar and stone; through the long marsh-grasses of villainy and by many a transplanted bough-beam, where the wretched have hung."

"I know nothing of these things, Pierre. But I like not the town. Think'st thou, Pierre, the time will ever come when all the earth shall be paved?"

"Thank God, that never can be!"

"These silent side-glooms are horrible;-look! Methinks, not for the world would I turn into one."

That moment the nigh fore-wheel sharply grated under the body of the coach.

"Courage!" cried Pierre, "we are in it! — Not so very solitary either; here comes a traveler."

"Hark, what is that?" said Delly, "that keen iron-ringing sound? It passed us just now."

"The keen traveler," said Pierre, "he has steel plates to his boot-heels;-some tender-souled elder son, I suppose."

"Pierre," said Isabel, "this silence is unnatural, is fearful. The forests are never so still."

"Because brick and mortar have deeper secrets than wood or fell, sweet Isabel. But here we turn again; now if I guess right, two more turns will bring us to the door. Courage, all will be well; doubtless he has prepared a famous supper. Courage, Isabel. Come, shall it be tea or coffee? Some bread, or crisp toast? We'll have eggs, too; and some cold chicken, perhaps."-Then muttering to himself-"I hope not that, either; no cold collations! there's too much of that in these paving-stones here, set out for the famishing beggars to eat No. I won't have the cold chicken." Then aloud-"But here we turn again; yes, just as I thought. Ho, driver!" (thrusting his head out of the window) "to the right! to the right! it should be on the right! the first house with a light on the right!"

"No lights yet but the street's," answered the surly voice of the driver.

"Stupid! he has passed it-yes, yes-he has! Ho! ho! stop; turn back. Have you not passed lighted windows?"

"No lights but the street's," was the rough reply. "What's the number? the number? Don't keep me beating about here all night! The number, I say!"

"I do not know it," returned Pierre; "but I well know the house; you must have passed it, I repeat. You must turn back. Surely you have passed lighted windows?"

"Then them lights must burn black; there's no lighted windows in the street; I knows the city; old maids lives here, and they are all to bed; rest is warehouses."

"Will you stop the coach, or not?" cried Pierre, now incensed at his surliness in continuing to drive on.

"I obeys orders: the first house with a light; and 'cording to my reck'ning-though, to be sure, I don't know nothing of the city where I was born and bred all my life-no, I knows nothing at all about it-'cording to my reck'ning, the first light in this here street will be the watch-house of the ward-yes, there it is-all right! cheap lodgings ye've engaged-nothing to pay, and victuals in."

To certain temperaments, especially when previously agitated by any deep feeling, there is perhaps nothing more exasperating, and which sooner explodes all self-command, than the coarse, jeering insolence of a porter, cabman, or hack-driver. Fetchers and carriers of the worst city infamy as many of them are; professionally familiar with the most abandoned haunts; in the heart of misery, they drive one of the most mercenary of all the trades of guilt. Day-dozers and sluggards on their lazy boxes in the sunlight, and felinely wakeful and cat-eyed in the dark; most habituated to midnight streets, only trod by sneaking burglars, wantons, and debauchees; often in actual pandering league with the most abhorrent sinks; so that they are equally solicitous and suspectful that every customer they encounter in the dark, will prove a profligate or a knave; this hideous tribe of ogres, and Charon ferry-men to corruption and death, naturally slide into the most practically Calvinistical view of humanity, and hold every man at bottom a fit subject for the coarsest ribaldry and jest; only fine coats and full pockets can whip such mangy hounds into decency. The least impatience, any quickness of temper, a sharp remonstrating word from a customer in a seedy coat, or betraying any other evidence of poverty, however minute and indirect (for in that pecuniary respect they are the most piercing and infallible of all the judgers of men), will be almost sure to provoke, in such cases, their least endurable disdain.

Perhaps it was the unconscious transfer to the stage-driver of some such ideas as these, which now prompted the highly irritated Pierre to an act, which, in a more benignant hour, his better reason would have restrained him from.

He did not see the light to which the driver had referred; and was heedless, in his sudden wrath, that the coach was now going slower in approaching it. Ere Isabel could prevent him, he burst open the door, and leaping to the pavement, sprang ahead of the horses, and violently reined back the leaders by their heads. The driver seized his four-in-hand whip, and with a volley of oaths was about striking out its long, coiling lash at Pierre, when his arm was arrested by a policeman, who suddenly leaping on the stayed coach, commanded him to keep the peace.

"Speak! what is the difficulty here? Be quiet, ladies, nothing serious has happened. Speak you!"

"Pierre! Pierre!" cried the alarmed Isabel. In an instant Pierre was at her side by the window; and now turning to the officer, explained to him that the driver had persisted in passing the house at which he was ordered to stop.

"Then he shall turn to the right about with you, sir;-in double quick tune too; do ye hear? I know you rascals well enough. Turn about, you sir, and take the gentleman where he directed."

The cowed driver was beginning a long string of criminating explanations, when turning to Pierre, the policeman calmly desired him to re-enter the coach; he would see him safely at his destination; and then seating himself beside the driver on the box, commanded him to tell the number given him by the gentleman.

"He don't know no numbers-didn't I say he didn't? — that's what I got mad about."

"Be still"-said the officer. "Sir"-turning round and addressing Pierre within; "where do you wish to go?"

"I do not know the number, but it is a house in this street; we have passed it; it is, I think, the fourth or fifth house this side of the last corner we turned. It must be lighted up too. It is the small old-fashioned dwelling with stone lion-heads above the windows. But make him turn round, and drive slowly, and I will soon point it out."