through his bad heart, and I went my way. I'd no call to cry for him. My father sent a curse after me, and refused me a bit to eat. Oh, if she was only dead, and I was dead!"

There was another silence, which lasted until they were nearly at their journey's end. As the gig crossed the old steep bridge of a single arch over the little river Allan, which gave the country town its name, the doctor said: "The master and matron at the house are man and wife, strangers here; they come from Liverpool way. They will not recognize you, if nobody else does. I should advise you to stay quietly there until you have recovered your strength, and then to try if your father will forgive you, and put you in the way of earning a decent living. I suppose that was your object in coming, Alice ?"

"I don't know what was my object, doctor; it was like as if I could not help it. And now I'd fain be back where I came from. I've no hope, and I can get no rest. It is all just judgment--the scourge that's driving me, I twined and knotted it myself."

The doctor did not gainsay her. The gig stopped opposite a high wall with a white door in it, at which he got out and rang, the rickety-rackety jangle of a broken bell answering his energetic pull, and waking up all the echoes and sleeping dogs in the bleak marketplace. After the lapse of a minute or two the master appeared at the door with a lantern.

This confidential communication made and responded to, the doctor helped Alice out of the gig, saw her and the child pass into the poor-house yard, and then drove slowly across the market-place to his own door, cogitating very seriously on the night's adventure. If it had not been so late he would have turned his horse's head back again to Rood there and then; for here was a difficulty to unravel harder than a tom-fool's knot to untie.

The doctor was not a man of energy except in the way of his business, but he was a man of heart and probity. He could know a thing about which all the world was curious without yearning to achieve a cheap notoriety by talking of it. His morning thoughts were not less grave than his night thoughts, but they were more cautious and reserved, and when he saw Alice again, he was glad he had not gone to Rood on the spur of the event. She shared the sick ward with two women so ancient that they were past minding anything but gruel, tea, snuff, and the fire. Her bed was next the window, and there she lay, wakeful and anxious, when he entered.

eyes of the ancient women were looking that way. The doctor could only speak his common formula of question, counsel, and comfort, and go; but he contrived to convey to Alice an intimation that the secret of her being there would not be noised abroad by him.

After his visit to the poor-house, Dr. Grey set forth on his daily round, leaving Buckhurst at home to answer casual comers. He took Rood Abbey nearly the last, arriving on his visit to Mr. Tindal about the middle of the afternoon. Pierce ushered him into the library, where his master was, and left them together. Mr. Tindal had been employed in looking over a file of old newspapers when he was interrupted. He was tired and dispirited-had been doing too much, as the doctor plainly told him.

"I want my little nurse to amuse me. You are her guardian, Grey, along with Wynyard of Eastwold, are you not ?"

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'Yes, I believe I am; but she has nothing to thank me for in the way of care," replied the doctor, awakening all of a sudden to an embarrassing case, which had grown up under his nose quite unobserved and unsuspected. He shirked away from it, for the moment, by inquiring what his patient had been doing to get so weary and excited.

Ha! I wish you luck, that I do. What track are you on ?"

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'You remember the whole dreadful business ?" "As well as if it had only happened yesterday." "There is a story in Monday's Times of a girl shooting a soldier in the park-shooting him dead; for jealousy and revenge, of course. My brother Hugh had given more than one woman the same reason to change love for hatred, and sweet for bitter: notably, Alice Pierce and Aimée Vibert. Could that dark gipsy-coloured woman who was sought after-but not half sharply enough-have been Aimée ? Alice was light-complexioned."

Yes, Alice was fair," repeated the doctor. "Grey eyes, clear pale skin, not much colour, and nut-brown hair. A proud lass in her innocent days, but not one to stop half-way to the devil when she had started."

"Her father assures me he has never seen or heard word of her since she left her home. She may be living or she may be dead, for anything he knows-or wants to know.”

"Ha!" ejaculated the doctor, thinking to himself how shrewdly the old fox had kept her secret, and confirmed in some preconceived strong suspicions by Pierce's falsehood. There had always been a misty crooked notion in his mind that the woman in the wood was the assassin, and that Hugh Tindal got only right served for his sins. After a brief pause he asked his patient: "Could you ever guess where the first whisper rose from against you?"

"Never. I had not an enemy in the world that I was aware of. I had done no man wrong, and no woman either. My only rival was Hugh himself."

Mr. Tindal took a cigar. "You don't smoke, Grey, I know." He enjoyed his own pleasure for some minutes in brooding silence, but just as the doctor

healing as sedulously to the crippled broom-maker, who lived high upon the moor near Pedlar's Bones, as he did to the well-paying squirearchy and yeomanry who had their comfortable being in the rich lowlands of the dale. His first visit was, as usual, to the poor-house.

The matron brought him, to begin with, into a faint, chill room, where Alice's child was the solitary occupant. The little creature was unconscious, tossing, fretting, and moaning in a burning fever. "I don't think she'll pull through it, Doctor Grey," said the woman. 66 They rarely do when they are like this." The doctor asked if her mother had been told. "No, sir; master judged it better not. She is as flighty herself as ever she can be. She has got a sleepless fit on her like that young woman we had to move to Norminster Asylum last autumn. I shouldn't wonder if she ended there too; it is horrid to hear her grinding her teeth, and raging, as if she had some thing bad on her mind."

"Nothing to be understood, sir; only wishing herself dead, and that. Mr. Clewer was here yesterday afternoon, but she was sullen then, and took no notice; though I do think if ever there was a young minister that had the right way with him in dealing with such as come here, it is surely him."

"I'll go up to her, and just you call old Hannah and Sally Perkins out of the way. If she is low, you must watch her."

When Doctor Grey entered the sick ward, Alice was sitting up in her bed, her face bowed down upon her knees, rocking her body to and fro, and moaning in the misery of her heart. He called her twice before she heard, and raised her haggard eyes; and then, after staring vacantly at him for a moment, she dropped her head once more into its former position. "I will come in again later," said the doctor, as he passed the matron on the stairs. "You can only take care at present that she does herself no mischief. Her wits are going." The matron fancied the doctor was very short, and not so feeling as he generally was. She could not guess what a relief he was experiencing to think that perhaps God might be pleased to call this poor soul to His mercy, and thus to simplify a task that he felt to be cruelly difficult.

He took Rood first in his round this morning. Mr. Tindal had gone out into the sun, and was making a tour of the lawn, with the aid of Pierce's arm and a stick. He looked delicate, but fresh and almost gay. Pierce was as usual desolate and respectful. "This is a good move," said the doctor. You will soon colour again in the air; your skin takes kindly to the tan. Exchange Pierce's arm for mine a few minutes."

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The servant resigned his office and retired, his master looking after him with a countenance almost of compunction. "He has told me, Grey. Poor old Pierce, I've known him from a lad! I had not the heart to be righteously indignant when I heard that it was perhaps to save his own daughter I had been sacrificed. The sudden sense of release at last was too great happiness to be spoilt by crucifying him anew. What a life he must have led-for he has loved me after a manner, and has felt every pang, every humiliation, every loss that came on me, like a fresh sin added to his burthen-he says so; I declare I gave him not one reproach; I could not."

"It must have been a deliberate deed-if she did it. A journey-a disguise; and what do you propose to do in the matter, Tindal? Vengeance for Hugh's murder is evidently not in your thoughts."

"I have given Pierce a promise to bear my yoke, and not to publish the fact of Alice being here that miserable day, until she is out of the road. Pray, therefore, that it may be soon."

“I daresay it will.” The doctor then gave Mr. Tindal an account of how he had found Alice that morning. He listened, but his inclination was rather to expatiate on his own feeling of freedom and buoyant life, than to hear any mournful history. He said his first impulse had been to go to church to give thanks, but Pierce had suggested that it would be so strange to see him there, the people might wonder; so he had come out under the open heaven instead.

"I only long to tell Pennie, but I shall refrain; when I tell her that, I shall tell her more besides. You have vouchsafed me your consent, Grey," he added pleasantly.

Who knew the streets of the world more wisely than Arthur Tindal? or the churches, the theatres, the prisons, the antiquities, the pictures, the things old or the things new that are to be seen for a silver fee? He was not drawn to the deserts and solitudes of the earth. If he must be alone, still let it be in a crowd. He liked to move amongst his kind, to hear voices, to watch the little dramas that are perpetually enacting on the stage of life. Pierce travelled with him everywhere-a lugubrious shadow projected out of the dismal past, a memento mori that never ceased its sighing. Yet neither shadow nor sighing could get their cold chill into his bones. He raged now and then indeed furiously. What a capacity for happiness he had-what a keen sense of appreciation for the feast of earthly good things, at which he might never sit down!-for who sits and eats in peace with Damocles' sword hanging by a hair above his head, and with his convives eyeing him askance, as if his presence were poison in the dish? He looked on, thinking no more to taste the sweet and the savoury, mingled for most mortals so ingeniously with the bitter of life. looked on, sarcastically, sadly, yearningly, hungrily, for nearly seven years. He had a taste and a palate still undulled, and an appetite that, instead of turning away sick, grew only more and more craving, until he declared at last he must eat or die.

He

So it came to pass one morning shortly before Christmas, being then at Avignon, he announced to Pierce his determination to return to England. The servant exerted his utmost efforts at dissuasion in

vain. His master would go. He had been long enough a stranger and pilgrim, and he would return to the house of his fathers. Who could tell whether the Eskdale families might not have repented their harsh behaviour, and be willing now to give him again the hand of fellowship? He had reached home. Rood

Abbey received him without a welcome. A week-a fortnight-a month elapsed. Not a man sought him out. He mounted his horse and rode to the meet at Berrythorpe; he followed the field all day; he was in at the death, but nobody appeared to recognize him as one of their company. He had gone away, a rustic young fellow, under an awful cloud; he had returned, a man with the air of travel, experience, cultivation, and world-weariness. Spring and summer, autumn and winter, the times and the seasons had gone their round, but the bovine fixity of Eskdale opinion had stirred not a whit. Here was the Cain who had killed his brother; the mark had been plainly set; let him be

outcast still.

A feeling akin to despair had descended on him when he saw there was no repentance and no change. He went about glooming, and trying to fight it off. It was during one of his dark days that he met Penelope Croft riding to Mayfield with her mother. It was during another that he fell before their hospitable door, was taken in, was taken care of, and had his wounds bound up with tender Christian charity. Whether he would have seen love in Pennie's eyes had they met where all was gay and all serene, is a doubtful question. Perhaps he would not have taken patience to consider the face that was more pathetic than pretty, that had no regularity of feature or beautiful bloom of colour. But shut up with it so often alone, he had learnt to see that the countenance was womanly and thoughtful, that the eyes were now sparkling with mischief, now soft with an inexpressible tenderness, that the mouth was delicately firm, the skin clear and smooth as satin, and susceptible of a rosy flush under provocation. Pennie was fastidiously dainty and neat in all her belongings. She satisfied the most critical taste by her exquisite personal cultivation, and Mr. Tindal had not much to do beyond criticizing and observing her for ever so long. She gained by this close scrutiny; person, temper, mind-all stood the test; and when the time came for him to leave this little lady, he discovered that he loved her with all his heart.

THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT.

II. PROGRESS.

By the year 1850, after six years of experience and almost uniform success, the Rochdale Pioneers had proved the practical soundness of their business principles, and that in a way of all ways the most satisfactory. They had in fact, during that period, solved the difficult problem of bringing labour and capital amicably together, by transforming labourers into capitalists. There were now many members of their association, who, in consequence of having been for five or six years their own customers, and laying by all the while their own profits, were in possession of money for which it was desirable to find a new investment. After due consideration they resolved to start a flourmill. It was a bold undertaking, because these men knew nothing of the miller's vocation; but then they had been just as ignorant of the grocer's calling when they opened the provision-store six years before: so, in spite of all obstacles, they formed themselves into a trading company under the designation of the Rochdale Corn-mill Society, and commenced their undertaking. For the first year or two-as might be expected in the case of a company of proprietors ignorant of the business they carried on, and therefore

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much at the mercy of those who managed it for them they did not succeed. They had made a mistake in renting an old mill at a distance from the town, and grinding their corn after the old method. They repaired this error by building a new mill in the town, filling it with the best machinery, and manufacturing their flour in the most approved methods. With the means of doing business thoroughly and well, their trade increased, and as their produce bore a high character it was much in demand, particularly among the co-operative storekeepers, who were growing more numerous year by year and month by month. In 1859 no fewer than fifty co-operative stores in Lancashire and Yorkshire were buying their flour and meal of the Rochdale mill-owners, who were then grinding by steam-power at the rate of 1400 sacks a week. During that year they did business to the amount of 85,8151, realizing a profit of 61151. Their chief customers were the Pioneers, their parent society, who paid them some ten thousand pounds a quarter. Since that time the business has been steadily increasing, and probably has doubled ere this; the amount of cash received for goods sold in the year 1865 being 148,5331., and the profit realized on the sales 12,511l.

Looking to the success of the co-operative stores and corn-mills, it is no wonder that the weavers of Rochdale should think of applying the co-operative principle to the carrying out of their own trade. Accordingly, their next undertaking, a still bolder one than either of the former, was the establishment of a cotton-factory of their own, in which they should receive wages from their own capital, and ultimately divide the profits of their own labour. About fifty thousand pounds would require to be spent before they could set to work, a sum which ten years before no working-man in England would have dreamed of raising. But co-operation sets aside such difficulties-regarding them as things of course. In 1854 the Co-operative Manufacturing Society was planned by a body of working-men; the 50,000l. was to be raised in ten thousand shares of 51. each, such shares to be paid up out waiting for the whole capital to build their factory, at once or by instalments of a shilling a week. Withthey hired an upper floor for cotton-spinning, a lower floor in another place for power-loom weaving, and began to work. They had no difficulty in getting a sale for their products, and their capital steadily increased. In about four years from starting they began to build their factory, which in due time was finished and stocked with the necessary machinery, at a cost somewhat exceeding their original estimate of 50,0007. In 1860 their capital had risen to 64,000l., their members numbered 1600; they had 320 looms at work, 23,000 mule and throstle spindles, and employed 270 hands. During the sad years of the cotton famine they suffered loss as well as others; but the loss which overthrew many an establishment of private capitalists. however severely it may have tested their system, did not ruin them: like other co-operative associations, they came out of that trial with credit, and with unabated ardour. At the present time their capital is about 91,000l., and they received cash for goods during the year 1865 to the amount of 133,8951.

It may be as well to state in this place how the cooperative principle is made to work in a factory or any other industrial undertaking. It is but a modification of the plan pursued in the stores, and which bas been described in the preceding paper. Just as the customers at the store receive a profit proportioned to their purchases, so do the workmen at the factory receive a profit proportioned to the wages they earn. The fairness of this plan is self-evident, and it is with good reason much liked by the workmen themselves. It acts as a stimulus to the "hands," whether old or young, to improve themselves, so that they may deserve a higher rate of wages, which will bring with it a larger

share of profit. The community of interest further tends largely to the prosperity of the undertaking there is no waste either of time or material, because it is the interest of every man and boy who is employed to use all care and diligence. It may be said that virtually the master's eye is in the workman's head, seeing that the meanest "hand" employed ranks as a proprietor, and not only works, but to some extent exercises a supervision. In illustration of the tendency of co-operation to ensure thorough work, Mr. Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, and well-known philanthropist, lately related a characteristic anecdote. "Major Cartwright, he said, once told him that in his youth he (the Major) served in the royal navy; when, after cruising about in various parts of the world, he found his way into the Mediterranean, at a time when England was at war with Turkey. Greece was then a part of Turkey, and British cruisers had to give chase to Greek merchant vessels; but they could rarely manage to come up with them. The cleverness of these escapes led to inquiry, and the Major discovered that, after a very wise Greek custom, every member of their merchantmen's crews, from the captain down to the cabin-boy, had a share in the vessel. In a word, they sailed and fought on co-operative principles, and did their work so well that the English cruisers were not sharp enough to catch them.

It was inevitable that a movement like co-operation, which had prospered so well in the hands of the Rochdale men, should take root and spread, and that other workers in other places should follow their example. No sooner was the soundness of the Rochdale principles established, than associations of a similar or analogous character began to be formed in other districts; and ere long they were to be found throughout the whole of the factory districts of South Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. In Leeds the system grew almost at once to maturity. The Leeds men were indeed the first to start as manufacturers and dealers in flour, and the Leeds Co-operative Flourmill, which was set on foot in 1847, may, for all we know, have instigated the Rochdale men to the establishment of their Corn-mill Society. Other manufacturing associations sprung up at various places, the most notable being those at Wardle, near Rochdale, and at Stackstead; those in the neighbourhood of Bacup and Rossendale; the extensive mills at Bury; and the Industrial Association at Halifax, which lastnamed society, established in 1850, now does business to the amount of 150,000l. a year. We have no means of arriving at the precise dates of the various societies, or of determining exactly the order of priority; but this is of less consequence than the fact, that as the principles of co-operation became generally known to the industrial classes, they were applied boldly and without hesitation to almost every description of manufactures. The co-operative associations now in existence in England not only supply groceries and provisions to their members, which was their original purpose; but they manufacture clothing of all kinds, they deal in drapery goods and woollens, in blankets, serges, saddlery, hides and leather; they spin and weave cotton; they grind corn; they dig coal from the mine; they slaughter cattle and they do fifty other things for their mutual benefit, which they could not do but for the bond of union which unites them. If they do not already cultivate farms on the co-operative principle, they will most likely do so ere long, and bring the advantages of their system home to the agricultural labourer.

Perhaps the clearest notion of the spread of the cooperative movement, during the twenty-two years that have elapsed since the inauguration of the Rochdale store, would be derivable from an examination of Mr. Tidd Pratt's Annual Reports. We shall, for the reader's benefit, select the last, published in June,

1866, and fish out from the mass of its tables some items which seem worthy of special_consideration. The return, it will be understood, is for England alone. We find that the number of societies certified up to December, 1864, was 651, of which number 417 have sent in returns. Now these 417 returns will afford us some interesting information relative to the spread of co-operation, as they show when the movement was most active and stirring, and when it flagged. The oldest co-operative society of which mention is made, is the Anti-mill Industrial, established for grinding corn, in 1795, at Kingston-on-Hull; this seems to be the only surviving association of the last century. It still prospers, having 3979 members, and its business transactions in 1865 were to the amount of 38,7651. Nearly forty years elapsed, according to the report, before another society came into existence. Then there is one in 1832, one in 1838, one in 1840, and one in 1842. In 1844 the famous Rochdale Pioneers was the only one; in the following year there was but one, and in 1846 there was none. In 1847, which witnessed the establishment of the Leeds Flour - mill, there were three; in 1848 (the year of European revolution and Chartist agitation at home) there was but one; but in the following year, when misgivings as to Chartisin were entertained by the more sensible portion of the people, the number rose to five. In 1850, when Chartism had utterly exploded, and working-men were cogitating on the best means of doing that for themselves which no Government can ever do for them, co-operation gained favour, and thirteen societies were established in the north. In 1851 (the year of the Exhibition in Hyde Park) seven new societies had been added to the list; when suddenly the English labourer was startled and temporarily thrown off his balance by the news of the Australian gold-diggings. Men who could work hard saw a speedy way to wealth, and thousands of them packed themselves off to the other side of the world, determined to make their fortunes. It is no wonder if, while that mania was fresh, cooperation fell to a discount-who would be content to save weekly sixpences when he might grasp golden nuggets for the trouble of fetching them? The gold fever did not subside in 1852, when only one new society was started-nor in 1853, which gave birth to but two. In 1854, however, the return to better feeling was marked by the founding of ten new societies. In 1855 the number of new ones was five; 1856 saw eleven new ones; 1857 produced six, and 1858 twelve. The public prints about this time took up the subject of co-operation, and handled it freely; some of them according it rather rough usage, but the majority of them recognizing its merits and advocating its claims. In 1859 twenty-four new societies gave token of its increasing popularity; but this was nothing compared to the increase that was impending, and which, in 1860, declared itself by the addition of seventy new societies to those already in operation. In 1861 the American civil war broke out; and one might have thought, that, fertile as it was in calamity to the operatives of this country, they would have had little heart for new speculations. But the working-men seem to have taken a right view of the question: they probably thought that the season of misfortune should be notably the season for thrift and saving; and this may be the reason why 1861 produced more co-operative associations than any year before or since, the number for that year being ninety-four. The following three years, 1862, 1863, and 1864, produced respectively fortyfive, forty-four, and forty-six; and considering that these were the terrible years of the cotton famine, this single item in their history is not a little remarkable. That much of the increase recorded in the later years was due to the facilities afforded by the Limited Liability Act-which, though it passed in 1855, had not been finally revised and made available to working