promise,
and yet I feel somehow I'm doing wrong to go, and as if no good would
come of it. I do indeed!"

And so he did not stop the cab a second time, and allowed himself to be
taken without further protest to Fenchurch Street Station, on the
platform of which they found the Misses Parkinson waiting for them.

Miss Bella Parkinson, the elder of the two, who was employed in a large
toy and fancy goods establishment in the neighbourhood of Westbourne
Grove, was tall and slim, with pale eyes and auburn hair. She had some
claims to good looks, in spite of a slightly pasty complexion, and a
large and decidedly unamiable mouth.

Her sister Ada was the more pleasing in appearance and manner, a
brunette with large brown eyes, an impertinent little nose, and a
brilliant healthy colour. She was an assistant to a milliner and
bonnet-maker in the Edgware Road.

Both these young ladies, when in the fulfilment of their daily duties,
were models of deportment; in their hours of ease, the elder's cold
dignity was rather apt to turn to peevishness, while the younger sister,
relieved from the restraints of the showroom, betrayed a lively and even
frivolous disposition.

It was this liveliness and frivolity that had fascinated the hairdresser
in days that had gone by; but if he had felt any self-distrust now in
venturing within their influence, such apprehensions vanished with the
first sight of the charms which had been counteracted before they had
time to prevail.

She was well enough, this Miss Ada Parkinson, he thought now; a
nice-looking girl in her way, and stylishly dressed. But his Matilda
looked twice the lady she ever could, and a vision of his betrothed (at
that time taking a week's rest in the country) rose before him, as if to
justify and confirm his preference.

The luckless James had to undergo some amount of scolding from Miss
Bella for his want of punctuality, a scolding which merely supplied an
object to his grin; and during her remarks, Ada had ample time to rally
Leander Tweddle upon his long neglect, and used it to the best
advantage.

Perhaps he would have been better pleased by a little less
insensibility, a touch of surprise and pleasure on her part at meeting
him again, as he allowed himself to show in a remark that his absence
did not seem to have affected her to any great extent.

"I don't know what you expected, Mr. Tweddle," she replied. "Ought I to
have cried both my eyes out? You haven't cried