-JI. Mr. and Mrs. Larumle breakfast with the Boffins; their plot is understood, and their plans frustrated.-11I. Wegg "drops down" on Mr. Boffin, and, after showing him the will, sees him home.-IV. John Rokesmith and Bella are married; how Mrs. Wilfer received the news. - V. Bella's housekeeping.—VI. Eugene and Lizzie meet by appointment on the river-bank; he urges his suit, but Lizzie firmly declines to encourage him, on account of the difference of their positions in society, and begs him to leave her; Eugene, walking by the river after their interview, is assaulted by Headstone, and his body thrown Into the water; he is rescued by Lizzie.— VII. Bradley Headstone returns to the lockhouse; he is dogged by Riderhood, who sees him resume his own dress, and throw his disguise into the river; Charley Hexam upbraids Headstone, and drops his acquaintance; Rogue Kiderhood catches his fish. — VIII. Fledgeby attempts to learn from Jenny Wren the place of Lizzie Hexam's retreat; Fledgeby is caned by Lammle, and has his wounds dressed by Jenny.- IX. Jenny comes to an understanding of Riah's true character; Fledgeby sends Riah his discharge; death of Jenny's father; Mortimer desires Jenny's presence at the bedside of Eugene. -X Jenny divines that Eugene wishes to marry Lizzie. -XI. Bradley Headstone's meeting with Rev. Mr. Milvey, and agitation at the news of Lizzie's approaching marriage; the marriage of Eugene and Lizzie.-XII. Rokesmith encounters Lightwood, and is recognized as Julius Handford; John goes with the inspector of police and Bella to the Fellowship Porters on a matter of identification; John takes Bella to their new home in London. - XIII. Mrs. Boffin relates to Bella the story of her husband's identity, how she had found him out, and how they had planned to test her love for him. XIV. Wegg finds Venus in improved spirits, and appoints a time for bringIng Boffin to the grindstone; Wegg finds his friendly move checkmated, and is finally disposed of by Sloppy.-XV. Riderhood visits Headstone in his school; Headstone goes to Riderhood's lock, and refuses his demands; finding he cannot get rid of him, he seizes him, forces him into the lock, and both are drowned. - XVI. Mrs. Wilfer, with Miss Lavinia and George Sampson, visit Bella in her new home; first interview between Sloppy and Jenny Wren; Mr. and Mrs. Wrayburn visit Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon.-XVII. Mor Miner takes a final look at society.

Doctor Marigold.

ORIGINALLY published as part of the collection of tales entitled "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions," which formed the regular Christmas number of " All the Year Round" for 1865. The story takes its name from a "Cheap Jack," or travel ling auctioneer, who relates in a most natural and entertaining way the history of his life.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Joskin. A chuckle-headed country-fellow, who volunteers a bid of twopence for Doctor Marigold's sick child, when he appears with her on the foot-board of his cart.

Marigold, Doctor. The narrator of the story. He describes himself as "a middle-aged man, of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat, the strings of which is always gone behind,” with a white hat, and a shawl round his neck, worn loose and easy. He is a "Cheap Jack,” or itinerant auctioneer, born on the highway, and named "Doctor" out of gratitude and compliment to his mother's accoucheur. He marries, and has one child, a little girl, but loses both daughter and wife, and continues his travels alone. Coming across a deaf-and-dumb child, however, who, he fancies, resembles his lost daughter, he adopts her, and sends her to a school for deaf-mutes, to be educated; but she falls in love with a young man who is also deaf and dumb, and he is forced to give her up. She sails for China with her husband, but returns, after an absence of a few years, bringing with her a little daughter who can both hear and talk; and the measure of the Doctor's happiness is once more full.

Marigold, Mrs.

Wife of Doctor Marigold; a Suffolk young woman whom he courted from the footboard of his cart.

She was n't a bad wife; but she had a temper. If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I would n't have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her away; for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret; though you won't be lieve it. Thirteen year of temper in a palace would try the worst of you; but thirteen year of temper in a cart would try the best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is 80 aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse: what more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside; you hobble your old horse, and turn him grazing; you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors; you cook your stew; and you would n't call the emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you; and where are you then? Put a name to your feelings.

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it was a mystery to me: but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep; and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him.

At such times, she does not spare her little daughter, but treats her with great cruelty. When, however, the child dies, she takes to brooding, and tries to drown remorse in liquor; but one day, seeing a woman beating a child unmercifully, she stops her ears, runs away like a wild thing; and the next day she is found in the river. Marigold, Little Sophy. Their daughter; a sweet child, shamefully abused by her mother, but dearly loved by her father, to whom she is quite devoted. She takes a bad low fever, and dies in his arms, while he is convulsing a rustic audience with his jokes and witty speeches.

Marigold, Willum. Doctor Marigold's father; a "lovely one, in his time," at the "Cheap Jack" work.

Mim.

A showman, who is a most ferocious swearer, and who has a very hoarse voice. He is master to Pickleson, and step-father to Sophy, whom he disposes of to Doctor Marigold for half a dozen pairs of braces.

Pickleson, called RINALDO DI VELASCO

An amiable though

timid giant, let out to Mim for exhibition by his mother, who spends the wages he receives.

He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities. He had a little head, and less in it; he had weak eyes and weak knees; and altogether you could n't look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind.

Sophy. A deaf-and-dumb girl adopted by Doctor Marigold after the death of his own daughter Sophy. She becomes greatly attached to her new father, who loves her fervently in return, and is very kind and patient with her, trying at first to teach her himself to read, and then sending her to an institution for deaf mutes, to be educated. She subsequently marries a man afflicted like herself; goes abroad with him; and, after an absence of over five years, returns home with a little daughter. Doctor Marigold thus describes their meeting:—

I had started at a real sound; and the sound was on the steps of the cart. It was the light, hurried tread of a child coming clambering up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that, for half a moment, I believed I was a-going to see a little ghost.

But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a real child peeped in, - a bright little comely girl with large dark eyes.

Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell all about her face. Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice,

"Grandfather!"

"Ah, my God!" I cries out. "She can speak!"

"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever any one that I remind you of?"

In a moment, Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child; and her husband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid; and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking, pleased and quick, and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face.

Barbox Brothers,

AND

BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.

THIS story-tor "Barbox Brothers and Co." is merely a pendant or seques to "Barbox Brothers"-is one of a number of tales included in "Mugby Junotion," the extra Christmas number of "All the Year Round" for 1866. The her of the story, who is also the narrator of it, is at first a clerk in the firm of Barbc Brothers, then a partner, and finally the firm itself. From being a moody, self contained, and unhappy person, made so by the lumbering cares and the accumu lated disappointments of long monotonous years, he is changed, under circum. stances that awaken and develop his better nature, into a thoroughly cheerful man, with eyes and thoughts for others, and a hand ever ready to help those who need and deserve help; and thus, taking, as it were, thousands of partners into the solitary firm, he becomes "Barbox Brothers and Co."

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Barbox Brothers.

See JACKSON, MR.

Beatrice. A careworn woman, with her hair turned gray, whom "Barbox Brothers " had once loved and lost. She is the wife of Tresham. See Jackson (Mr.); Tresham.

Jackson, Mr. A former clerk in the public notary and bill-broking firm of Barbox Brothers, who, after imperceptibly becoming the sole representative of the house, at length retires, and obliterates it from the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two portmanteaus, which he has with him one rainy night when he leaves a train at Mugby Junction.

A man within five years of fifty, either way, who had turned gray too soon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head,