with thick and umbrageous
trees, and sometimes methought I heard the horn of the guard, and
sometimes the voice of the coachman, now chiding, now encouraging his
horses, as they toiled through the deep and miry ways. At length a
tremendous crack of a whip saluted the tympanum of my ear, and I started
up broad awake, nearly oversetting the chair on which I reclined--and lo!
I was in the dingy room before the fire, which was by this time half
extinguished. In my dream I had confounded the noise of the street with
those of my night journey; the crack which had aroused me I soon found
proceeded from the whip of a carter, who, with many oaths, was flogging
his team below the window.

Looking at a clock which stood upon the mantelpiece, I perceived that it
was past eleven; whereupon I said to myself, 'I am wasting my time
foolishly and unprofitably, forgetting that I am now in the big world,
without anything to depend upon save my own exertions'; and then I
adjusted my dress, and, locking up the bundle of papers which I had not
read, I tied up the other, and, taking it under my arm, I went
downstairs; and, after asking a question or two of the people of the
house, I sallied forth into the street with a determined look, though at
heart I felt somewhat timorous at the idea of venturing out alone into
the mazes of the mighty city, of which I had heard much, but of which, of
my own knowledge, I knew nothing.

{picture:I sprang up the steps, and gave a loud rap: page192.jpg}

I had, however, no great cause for anxiety in the present instance; I
easily found my way to the place which I was in quest of--one of the many
new squares on the northern side of the metropolis, and which was
scarcely ten minutes' walk from the street in which I had taken up my
abode. Arriving before the door of a tolerably large house which bore a
certain number, I stood still for a moment in a kind of trepidation,
looking anxiously at the door; I then slowly passed on till I came to the
end of the square, where I stood still, and pondered for a while.
Suddenly, however, like one who has formed a resolution, I clenched my
right hand, flinging my hat somewhat on one side, and, turning back with
haste to the door before which I had stopped, I sprang up the steps, and
gave a loud rap, ringing at the same time the bell of the area. After
the lapse of a minute the door was opened by a maid-servant of no very
cleanly or prepossessing appearance, of whom I