OUR  FIRST   CANARY.

It was a bitter winter day during a memorable frost six or seven years ago, London was hushed into a ghostly stillness under a fresh fallen pall of snow, when two ladies braved the pains and perils of a walk across Portland Place, into one of the obscure streets leading eastward out of Regent Street.

It was 12 A.M., but hardly any people were to be seen away from the main thoroughfares, so that we noticed at once a group of three people, whom we passed soon after leaving Regent Street. They were two rough-looking men, and a particularly respectable-looking young woman.

The latter was dressed with the print gown and white apron, and the apparently hastily-donned bonnet and shawl, of a servant sent out on a message ; the men were chiefly dressed in bird - cages, of which they had several hung about them.

As we passed the group, much action was observed, and rather loud words were heard ; the men speaking so roughly to the young woman that when she left them and came