on our way up the sandy lane, which offered us a last close view
of the old wall-flower farm front, I saw little Mabel Sweetwinter, often
my playfellow and bedfellow, a curly-headed girl, who would have
danced on Sunday for a fairing, and eaten gingerbread nuts during a
ghost-story. She was sitting by a furze-bush in flower, cherishing in
her lap a lamb that had been worried. She looked half up at me, and kept
looking so, but would not nod. Then good-bye, thought I, and remembered
her look when I had forgotten that of all the others.

CHAPTER IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR

Though I had not previously seen a postillion in my life, I gazed on the
pair bobbing regularly on their horses before me, without a thought upon
the marvel of their sudden apparition and connection with my fortunes.
I could not tire of hearing the pleasant music of the many feet at the
trot, and tried to explain to my father that the men going up and down
made it like a piano that played of itself. He laughed and kissed me; he
remembered having once shown me the inside of a piano when the keys
were knocked. My love for him as we drove into London had a recognized
footing: I perceived that he was my best friend and only true companion,
besides his being my hero. The wicked men who had parted us were no
longer able to do harm, he said. I forgot, in my gladness at their
defeat, to ask what had become of Shylock's descendant.

Mrs. Waddy welcomed us when we alighted. Do not imagine that it was at
the door of her old house. It was in a wide street opening on a splendid
square, and pillars were before the houses, and inside there was the
enchantment of a little fountain playing thin as whipcord, among ferns,
in a rock-basin under a window that glowed with kings of England, copied
from boys' history books. All the servants were drawn up in the hall to
do homage to me. They seemed less real and living than the wonder of
the sweet-smelling chairs, the birds, and the elegant dogs. Richest of
treats, a monkey was introduced to me. 'It 's your papa's whim,' Mrs.
Waddy said, resignedly; 'he says he must have his jester. Indeed it is
no joke to me.'

Yet she smiled happily, though her voice was melancholy. From her I now
learnt that my name was Richmond Roy, and not Harry Richmond. I said,
'Very well,' for I was used to change. Everybody in the house wore a
happy expression of countenance, except the monkey, who was too busy.
As we mounted the stairs I