and ran to a door where there was a young
woman washing the steps.

"Do you happen to know," he asked,
"whereabouts in this street a Mrs.
Lockwood lives?"

"Mrs. Lockwood!"echoed the girl, drying
her steaming arms on her apron, "this
is Mrs. Lockwood's."

The vicar beckoned to the cabman, who
had also alighted by this time, and who
now led his raw-boned horse up to the
door at a funereal pace.

"My good girl," said the vicar, "will
you take a message to your mistress at
once? It is of the greatest importance."

"Missis ain't up yet," rejoined the
servant, staring first at him, then at Maud,
and lastly at the cabman, from whom she
received a confidential wink, which seemed
to claim a common vantage-ground of
Cockneyhood between himself and her,
and to separate them both from the vicar
and his ward.

"I will send up this card to her," said
Mr. Levincourt. He took out a card and
pencil, and wrote some words hastily.
Then he gave the girl the card together
with a shilling, and begged her to lose no
time in delivering the former to her
mistress, whilst she was to keep the latter for
herself.

The administration of the bribe appeared
to raise the vicar in the cabman's estimation.
The latter officiously pulled down the
window-glass on the side next the house,
so that Maud could put her head out, and
then stood with the handle of the cab door
in his hand, ready for any emergency.

The progress of the servant to her
mistress's bedroom was retarded by her efforts
to decipher what was written on the card,
an attempt in which she only partially
succeeded. In about five minutes she came
down again, and said to the vicar:

"Missus's best compliments, and the
lady as you're a looking for is lodging in
the 'ouse. She's on the first-floor, and
will you please walk into the
drawing-room?"

The vicar and Maud followed the girl
upstairs into a front room, furnished as a
sitting-room. It communicated by folding
doors, which were now closed, with another
apartment.

The servant drew up the yellow window-blinds,
desired the visitors to be seated, and
asked as she prepared to leave the room:

"Who shall I say, please?"

"Mr. Levincourt, and — Stay! You
had better take my card in to her ladyship,
and say that her niece is here with me, and
would be glad if she might see her."

The servant departed into the adjoining
chamber, as it appeared, for the sound of
voices very slightly muffled by the folding-
doors was heard immediately. In a very
few minutes the girl returned, begging
Maud to follow her.

"She ain't up yet, but she'd like to see
you, miss; and she'll come out to you, sir,
as soon as possible."

Maud obeyed her aunt's summons, and
the vicar was left alone, standing at the
window, and looking at the monotonous
line of the opposite houses. He was, in a
measure, relieved by the fact that the first
surprise and shock to Lady Tallis of his
presence and his errand in London would
be over before he saw her. He felt a strong
persuasion that tact and self-possession
were by no means poor Hilda's distinguishing
characteristics, and he had nervously
dreaded the first meeting with her.
Although he had placed himself as far as
possible from the folding-doors, he could hear
the voices rising and falling in the adjoining
room, and occasionally could distinguish
her ladyship's tones in a shrill
exclamation.

He tapped his fingers with irritable
impatience on the window. Why did not Maud
urge her aunt to hasten? She knew that
every minute was of importance to him,
He would wait no longer. He would go
away, and return later.

As he so thought, the door opened, and
there appeared the woman whom he had
last seen in the bloom of her youth more
than a score of years ago. The
remembrance of the beautiful Hilda Delaney was
very distinct in his mind. At the sound
of the opening door, he turned round and
beheld a figure startlingly at variance with
that remembrance: a small, lean, pale old
woman, huddled in a dark-coloured wrapper,
and with a quantity of soft grey hair
untidily thrust into a brown-silk net.

"My dear friend," said she, taking both
the vicar's hands — "my poor dear friend!"

Her voice had an odd, cracked sound,
like the tone of a broken musical instrument
which has once given forth sweet
notes; and she spoke with as unmistakable
a brogue as though she had never passed a
day out of the County Cork.

"Ah! ye wouldn't have known me, now,
would ye?" she continued, looking up into
the vicar's face.

"Yes," he answered, after an instant's
glance—"Yes, I should have known you."