her hand upon his mouth to silence him, and
whispered, "Yes; we'll come, and good-night."

In the soft darkness of the brougham, gently swung together, the
passing gaslights revealing the blueness of the cushions, a diamond
stud flashing intermittently, they lay, their souls sunk deep in the
intimacy of a companionship akin to that of a nest--they, the
inheritors of the pleasure of the night and the gladness of the
morrow.

Dressing was delirium, and Kitty had to adjure Mike to say no more;
if he did she should go mad. Breakfast had to be skipped, and it was
only by bribing a cabman to gallop to Westminster that they caught
the coach. Even so they would have missed it had not Mike sprung at
risk of limb from the hansom and sped on the toes of his patent
leather shoes down the street, his gray cover coat flying.

"What a toff he is," thought Kitty, full of the pride of her love.
Bessie, whom dear Laura had successfully chaperoned into well-kept
estate, sat with Dicky on the box; Laura sat with Harding in the back
seat; Muchross and Snowdown sat opposite them. The middle of the
coach was taken up by what Muchross said were a couple of bar-girls
and their mashers.

On rolled the coach over Westminster Bridge, through Lambeth, in
picturesqueness and power, a sympathetic survival of aristocratic
days. The aristocracy and power so vital in the coach was soon
communicated to those upon it. And now when Jem Gregory, the
celebrated whip, with one leg swinging over the side, tootled, the
passers-by seemed littler than ever, the hansoms at the corner seemed
smaller, and the folk standing at their poor doors seemed meaner. As
they passed through those hungry streets, ragged urchins came
alongside, throwing themselves over and over, beseeching coppers from
Muchross, and he threw a few, urging them to further prostrations.
Tootle, Jim, tootle; whether they starve or whether they feed, we
have no thought. The clatter of the hooves of the bays resounds
through those poor back-rooms, full of human misery; the notes of our
horn are perhaps sounding now in dying ears. Tootle, Jim, tootle;
what care we for that pale mother and her babe, or that toiling
coster whose barrow is too heavy for him! If there is to be
revolution, it will not be in our time; we are the end of the world.
Laura is with us to-day, Bessie sits on the box, Kitty is with our
Don Juan; we know there is gold in our pockets, we see our courtesans
by us, our gallant b