l hastened on, avoiding notice as much
as was in her power, and assisted in some degree by the advancing gloom
of night. She had reached Silver Street; a long, narrow, hilly Street;
and now she was at fault. There were not many persons about, and there
were few shops here; yet one was at last at hand, and she entered
to enquire her way. The person at the counter was engaged, and many
customers awaited him: time was very precious: Sybil had made the
enquiry and received only a supercilious stare from the shopman, who was
weighing with precision some article that he was serving. A young man,
shabby, but of a very superior appearance to the people of this quarter,
good-looking, though with a dissolute air, and who seemed waiting for a
customer in attendance, addressed Sybil. "I am going to Hunt Street," he
said, "shall I show you the way?"

She accepted this offer most thankfully. "It is close at hand, I
believe?"

"Here it is," he said; and he turned down a street. "What is your
house?"

"No. 22: a printing-office." said Sybil; for the street she had entered
was so dark she despaired of finding her way, and ventured to trust so
far a guide who was not a policeman.

"The very house I am going to," said the stranger: "I am a printer." And
they walked on some way, until they at length stopped before a glass
and illumined door, covered with a red curtain. Before it was a group
of several men and women brawling, but who did not notice Sybil and her
companion.

"Here we are," said the man; and he pushed the door open, inviting Sybil
to enter. She hesitated; it did not agree with the description that
had been given her by the coffee-house keeper, but she had seen so much
since, and felt so much, and gone through so much, that she had not at
the moment that clear command of her memory for which she was otherwise
remarkable; but while she faltered, an inner door was violently thrown
open, and Sybil moving aside, two girls, still beautiful in spite of gin
and paint, stepped into the Street.

"This cannot be the house," exclaimed Sybil starting back, overwhelmed
with shame and terror. "O! holy Virgin aid me!"

"And that's a blessed word to hear in this heathen land," exclaimed an
Irishman, who was one of the group on the outside.

"If you be of our holy church," said Sybil appealing to the man who
had thus spoken and whom she gently drew aside, "I beseech you, by
everything we hold sacred, to aid me."

"And will I not?"