More enraptured than ever at the picture
I had drawn, I was more than ever puzzled
how to proceed. To annoy her by following
her about was not to be thought of; to speak
to her in the street was equally detestable.

A letter—a carefully worded letter—
seemed my only chance. And very soon after
my return home I had composed, with
infinite effort, an address, in which I implored
an interview, an opportunity of expressing
the admiration which had consumed me ever
since I had seen her portrait in the street.
"It would shock me more than words could
tell," I said, " if the thought ever suggested
itself to her that I could be so base as to
write to insult one in so defenceless a
position. Far from it; the ardour of my feelings
was only equalled by the honourable and
respectful nature of them." The letter
concluded with a suggestion of the time and
place best suited for the meeting which I so
eagerly desired.

Do I get there before the time? Of course
I get there before the time. My head feeling
very warm, my fingers very cold, and my
mouth very dry. It is evening. As the
appointed hour draws near and passes, all
these symptoms become aggravated.
Aggravated so much that when that figure which,
at a little distance, in the darkness, I thought
might be the subject of my hopes and fears,
gets under the lamp, it is a positive relief to
me to find that it is not she; but, on the
contrary, a small female with a large head,
dressed in outrageous taste, middle-aged, and
ringleted.

But why does she of the middle age and
the ringlets—she of the large head and
odious costume, arrest her steps when she
has just got past me? Why does she go a
little farther and then hesitate again? Why
does she return? And why—O why—
with a mincing gesture and an affectation of
maiden bashfulness, terrible to behold, does
she draw forth a letter, and holding it towards
me inquire if I am the writer of it!

Because—because I am an ill-starred
miscreant—because I was born on a Friday—
because I am a fool and an idiot, and a rash,
misguided, misinformed, mistaken wretch,
destined to expiate my follies by tortures too
horrible to reflect on; because, as she
informs me when a faint gurgling rattle at the
back of my throat conveys to her, I suppose,
the plea of Guilty to the letter; because, I
say, she is Barker, Miss, pianist, who, though
deeply conscious of the imprudent step she is
taking in thus according an interview to a
stranger, is yet impelled to do so by reason
of the loneliness of her heart, which longs for
sympathy, and by a strange presentiment
(engendered by the nature of that accursed
document which I wrote in an accursed hour)
a presentiment that in its author she should
find at length a human being capable of
filling up the void within.

I ran away! Ran away fast; for the first
half mile very fast; for the next quarter of a
mile not so fast; then I stopped, looked
behind, and listened; then for a quarter of a
mile I trotted gently; then I stopped again,
and (if I may use the expression), looked
myself in the face.

Reflecting over this unhappy mistake, I
could only conclude that the domestic with
the scowl had deceived me as to there being
no lodgers in the house; that the young lady,
or the little girl who was with her, had
observed me following them, and had directed
the servant to give me no information. I
remembered that the door opened just after
the two had got inside, and that the
handmaiden of the ill-favoured visage took note
of me as if she had been told that the person
waiting outside was to be thwarted in every
conceivable way.

I must own that I thought all the better
of her for this. It showed a modesty and
difficulty of access, which was a good sign.
But how completely I was foiled. I did not
dare to go near the house for fear of meeting
with the susceptible Barker. The only
sustenance left for my passion consisted in
occasionally passing the photographic establishment
which had originated it, and gazing at
the portrait as long as the touter would
allow me; and this official began soon to
look at me so suspiciously that even that
gratification had to be given up by degrees.

A considerable interval elapses, and again,
time and occupation are at work fulfilling
their noble mission, and producing oblivion.

I had not got fifty yards from the
photograph-shop, where I had been taking a
surreptitious look at this strangely irresistible
portrait by the light of the gas-lamp (for it
was evening) when I came upon her again.
I had not followed her fifty yards more when
she turned into a poorish square, knocked at
the door of one of the houses, and was
instantly admitted.

They—the little girl was with her again—
they had not seen me this time, I was sure.
It was night. The time of my following
them was short, and the moment we got
into the square, I had darted over to the
enclosure side of it, which was very dark, and
from thence had watched them.

"No more mistakes, Charles Robert," I
said, "this time. Lean thee against the
railings, my son, and keep thine eyes upon the
house."

I follow my own advice, and am speedily
rewarded. In a very few minutes the door
opens, and a servant emerges. Quite another
type of domestic though, from my last terrible
experience: a nice, stumpy little article this,
and smiling, with a good black smear upon
her nose, and every other element calculated
to impair her dignity, and deprive her of the
power of impressing me with awe. With a
jug in her hand, too, bless her,—an empty
jug, and a large door key. Who's afraid?
Not I.