the streets quite at their ease, playing marbles at the corners for pennies with the newspaper boys;—­they know how to lie it out so as to escape beating, and have always some coppers in their pockets.  When old Walters rates you for staying, cannot you say that Mr. So-and-So made you wait so long before he would give you the money; or that Mrs. Somebody was not at home, and the cook told you to stay, for she would be back in a minute, and you could not be paid until they were tried on?”

Will was startled.  He let the shoe he was mending fall from his hands, and gazed with terror and astonishment on his reckless companion.

“Why, that would be—­lying!” said he slowly and in a low voice, as if he dreaded to utter the hateful word.

“To be sure it is lying, and nothing else,” answered Jem, laughing; “everybody lies, cannot you do so too?”

The blood mounted to the temples of the indignant boy, spreading its glow over his fair forehead, and causing his usually gentle eyes to flush with righteous anger.

“I a liar!  I tell a lie?” he cried.  “No! not to escape a beating every day will I tell a falsehood!”

“And why not, you silly jackanapes?” asked his ungodly comrade, in a tone of derision.

“Because my parents taught me it was sinful, and God has forbidden it,” said William.  “My mother always told me that lying was the first step in the road to ruin; and I read in my Bible that no one ’that loveth and maketh a lie’ can enter into that Holy City of which God himself is the glory and the light.”

Dear young reader, how glorious is the majesty of truth!  The dissipated and sin-loving journeyman, long since made familiar with vice, could not listen unmoved as the boy uttered the scriptural denunciation in the solemn and reverential manner he had been taught was proper, it was long since Jem Taylor had heard any word from that holy book, and now, awed by the dignity of the truth, that great principle of Christian life and conduct, he made no answer, but continued to work in silence.  Perhaps he might have resumed the subject; but Mr. Walters came in and commenced the usual fault-finding, and Jem answering reproach with reproach, there was nothing more said.

One day soon after, William was directed to go to the upper shop for a pair of white satin shoes, which he was to carry to a wealthy lady who lived during the summer months in a handsome cottage in the suburbs.  How happy he was at thought of seeing something like the country once more! and he started off at full speed, his elastic spirit happy and hopeful as if it had never known a sorrow.  The sunshine was so cheering, and rested so brightly on the spires as it bathed them in its golden radiance, that his whole mood partook of the genial glow.  He had reached the upper part of the city, and was quite in the neighbourhood of the house where the shoes were to be left, when a large dog coming round the corner at a speed as rapid as his own, ran directly in his way, and threw him over.  There had been a heavy shower in the early part of the afternoon, the gutters were still full of water, and although he was not hurt by his fall, yet in the shock the shoes were dashed from his hand, and fell into the muddy bath.