When this happened, I noticed a great change
come over the countenance of my guest. He
raised himself in his chair, and looking eagerly
forward, said, in quite a strange tone of voice:

"What did you say was the name of these
people?"

"Adams," was my answer.

"Adams—you are quite sure?"

"Quite," I replied. By this time the shadow
had vanished again, but I remarked that for
a considerable time Mr. Pycroft seemed
absent and uncomfortable, and we had talked of
many matters foreign to the subject I had at
heart, before he again returned to the shadows.

"They seem quiet enough now," said Mr.
Pycroft at last.

"I dare say," I answered, "that the cleaning
of the room is over, and that they have sat
down to a bit of supper."

"Do you think so?" asked the old copper-
plate printer.

"I dare say they have some little luxury,
furnished by your liberality."

"Do you really think so?" said the old boy,
who had a great idea of comfort. "What do you
think they've got? I wish the shadows would
show us that!"

I darted at once at the opening which I saw
here.

"The shadows will not show it," I said;
"but why not go across and see it in substance?
It would make their supper all the sweeter to
them, I am sure."

The old gentleman had just finished a tumbler
of hot grog. He was in high good humour, and
as I finished speaking his eyes began to twinkle,
and a latent smile developed itself about the
corners of his mouth.

"It wouldn't be bad fun, would it?" he said.

I wanted nothing more, and in another
minute I had him on his legs, and we were on our
way to No. 4.

A little girl was on the door-step with a pot
of beer in her hand, and we had no sooner
stopped before the house than she made known
a want incidental to the lives of maidens who
stand only three feet two inches in their
stockings:

"Please, sir, will you ring the second bell
from the top?"

"Second floor?" I said, as I complied;
"that's where Mr. and Mrs. Adams live, isn't
it?"

"Yes, sir, and he's my father," said the
young lady, who evidently looked upon the
couple alluded to as one flesh. I thought it
odd I had never seen this child's shadow on the
blind.

"Well, I want to see him, then," I replied,
"and so does this gentleman."

"Oh, but you can't, though," said the little
girl, who, by the way, appeared to be a
precocious shrew—"for father's at supper, and
there's a fowl, and father's been ill, and you
can't disturb him just as he's a little better—so
that you can't."

"You just hold your tongue, miss, will you?"
said a voice at this juncture, "and let me talk
to the gentleman."

I looked up and saw that the door had been
opened by a tall gaunt-looking woman, with a
large nose.

"Who did you please to want, sir?" she asked
in a whining tone, which I disliked very much.

I told her briefly who we were, and the object
of our visit.

"Oh, what a joyful surprise!" said the gaunt
woman, whining as before in a manner infinitely
offensive to me. "Get along up-stairs, Lizzy,"
she continued, addressing the child, "and tell
your father that the kind gentleman as assisted
him in his illness is coming to see him; I'm
his wife, kind gentlemen"—(this the shadow
that I had interested myself in!)—"I'm his
poor wife that nussed him through his illness,
and—take care of the stairs, kind gentlemen—
and this is the room, gentlemen; and here's a
joyful surprise, James; the gentlemen that's
been so kind all the time you've been ill; and
be pleased to take a seat, gentlemen, and honour
our poor room by sitting down in it."

I was thunderstruck. A little common-looking
man was sitting at the table on which a
smoking fowl, a bit of bacon, and some potatoes
had been placed. He bore the evident marks of
recent illness, and rose with some effort at our
entry. He resumed his seat, however, as I and
my companion sat down. I took a chair, as I
should have taken anything that was offered me
in sheer surprise and bewilderment. I looked
once more at the man's wife. What, was that
the substance of the neat little shadow which I
knew so well—that great gaunt sloping
creature? Were shadows so deceptive as this?
Would anybody tell me that my opposite neighbour
could have had such a nose as I now saw,
and that it would not have stood out in bold
relief and left its mark upon my memory every
time she approached the window?

The husband, too. That was not my poor
engraver. He was an inoffensive man enough,
as he sat there full of clumsy expressions of
gratitude to my companion for the assistance
accorded to him during his recent attack of
fever. He was a harmless little man, no doubt.
Not quite such a heavy blow as his wife; but
still, he was not my engraver.

All this time, even while her husband was
speaking, the gaunt woman kept up an
undercurrent of gratitude of the slimiest description,
to which the old gentleman answered not a
word, for he seemed as little prepared for the
real Mr. and Mrs. Adams by what he had seen
of their shadows as I was. In short, beyond a
few words of inquiry as to the state of the
invalid's health, which I had managed to utter on
first coming into the room, we had neither of us
spoken a word.

Suddenly the tremendous idea entered my
mind that there must be some mistake. I had
been staring some time at the little girl whom
we originally met on the door-step, and who,
to do her justice, returned the compliment with
interest, when it struck me that her head came