soot he uses on his land is returned to him in the straw, with improvement also to the grain.  And we believe him.  Lime is used to dilute soot when employed as a manure.  Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs, and caterpillars from peas and various other vegetables, as also from dahlias just shooting up, and other flowers; but we regret to add that we have sometimes known it kill or burn up the things it was intended to preserve from unlawful eating.  In short, it is by no means so safe to use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders and wood-ashes, which are good for almost any kind of produce, whether turnips or roses.  Indeed, we should like to have one fourth or fifth part of our garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of this kind.  From all that has been said, it will have become very intelligible why these Dust-heaps are so valuable.  Their worth, however, varies not only with their magnitude, (the quality of all of them is much the same,) but with the demand.  About the year 1820, the Marylebone Dust-heap produced between four thousand and five thousand pounds.  In 1832, St. George’s paid Mr. Stapleton five hundred pounds a year, not to leave the Heap standing, but to carry it away.  Of course he was only too glad to be paid highly for selling his Dust.

But to return.  The three friends having settled to their satisfaction the amount of money they should probably obtain by the sale of the golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built with it in the air, the frame was again infolded in the sound part of the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and up they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where Peggy lived, she having invited the others to tea, that they might talk yet more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.

“Why, if there isn’t a man’s head in the canal!” suddenly cried little Jem.  “Looky there!—­isn’t that a man’s head?—­Yes; it’s a drownded man!”

“A drownded man, as I live!” ejaculated old Doubleyear.

“Let’s get him out, and see!” cried Peggy.  “Perhaps the poor soul’s not quite gone.”

Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two old people.  As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance, with one arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was passing.  As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear Managed to get down into the water behind aim, and holding him by one hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was floating by.  He succeeded in reaching it, but the jerk was too much for his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the canal.  A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly echoed by Peggy on the bank.  Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling almost in the middle of the canal, with the body of