Darknefs and Light. 107

and could run up and down the long flights of
ftairs with the nimbleft of them. I believe the
only melancholy wifh he ever uttered was heard
on the firft day he reached the town houfe. When
his Mamma came to fee him in the nurfery that
evening, fhe found him kneeling ina chair againft
one of the windows—and on going up to him he
threw his arms round her neck and faid, “ Oh,
Mamma, if I could but fee the lamplighters ma
Do not laugh, dear readers, if I add that the tears
trickled over his cheeks as he fpoke. His mother
was much diftrefled, as fhe always was when fhe
faw him thinking of his affliction, but fhe fat down
and faid, ‘“« Never mind, dear Roderick, I will tell
you all they do to-night.” And fo fhe did, and
fhe made her account fo droll, of how the lamp-
lighter ran, and how he feized his ladder in fucha
hurry, and all the whole bufinefs, that by the time
fhe got to the end, and faid, ‘Sand now he has
come to the laft lamp-poft,—ah, he’s up before I
can tell you! and pop! the lamp is lit, and down
he runs, and off with his ladder to the next {treet
—and now the lamps are fhinirig bright all round
the fquare, and I muft go to dinner,’’— Roderick
was clapping his hands and laughing as merrily as
ever, and he got down from the chair quite fatis-
fed. Still for a few weeks he ufed always to get
one of the children to tell him of the lamps light-
ing, and this was the only fad little fancy the poor
child ever indulged in.

The great town gave him various new amufe-