ange.

Enacting what seemed to be a proper rite, she put her shaking left
hand upon his right shoulder, her right hand under his chin, as if to
cup it; and then, with sniffs and wailings interspersed, came her
petition to his merciful ears.

What she precisely asked of him, muttering, wheezing, whining,
snivelling, as she did, repeating herself--with her burthen of "O
dear, O dear, O dear!"--I don't know. Her lost girl, her fine
up-standing girl, her Nance, her only one, figured in it as needing
mercy. Her "Oh, sir, I ask you kindly!" and "Oh, sir, for this once ...!"
made me sick: yet he bore with her as she ran on, dribbling
tears and gin in a mingled flood; he bore with her, heard her in
silence, and in the end, by a look which I was not able to discover,
quieted and sent her shuffling back to her place. So soon as she was
down, the life-guardsman was on his feet, a fine figure of a man. He
marched unfalteringly up, stiffened, saluted, and then, observing the
ritual of hand to shoulder, hand to chin, spoke out his piece like the
honest fellow he was; spoke it aloud and without fear, evenly and
plainly. I thought that he had got it by heart, as I thought also of
another person I was to hear by-and-by. He wanted, badly it seemed,
news of his sweetheart, whom he was careful to call Miss Dixon. She
had last been heard of outside the Brixton Bon Marche, where she had
been seen with a lady friend, talking to "two young chaps" in
Volunteer uniform. They went up the Brixton Road toward Acre Lane, and
Miss Dixon, at any rate, was never heard of again. It was wearing him
out; he wasn't the man he had been, and had no zest for his meals. She
had never written; his letters to her had come back through the "Dead
Office." He thought he should go out of his mind sometimes; was afraid
to shave, not knowing what he might be after with "them things." If
anything could be done for him he should be thankful. Miss Dixon was
very well connected, and sang in a choir. Here he stopped, saluted,
turned and marched away into the night. I heard him pass a word or two
to the policeman, who turned aside and blew his nose. The hospital
nurse, who spoke in a feverish whisper, then a young woman from the
Piccadilly gas-lamps, who cried and rocked herself about, followed;
and then, to my extreme amazement, two ladies with cloaks and hoods
over evening gowns--one of them a Mrs. Stanhope, who was known to me.
The taller and younger lady, chaperoned b