"Wanted, an active and intelligent young man, for general work, in a commercial house having a branch at Alexandria.

It is desirable that he should be able to write a good hand; and, if necessary, to assist in office work.

Wages, 2 pounds per week.

Personal application to be made at Messieurs Partridge and Company, 453 Leadenhall Street." This advertisement was read by a man of five or six and twenty, in a small room in the upper story of a house in Lupus Street, Pimlico.

He was not the only inmate of the room, for a young woman, apparently not more than eighteen, was sitting there sewing; her work interrupted, occasionally, by a short, hacking cough.