ently the desire to see Dolly took such hold
upon me that I set out before dinner, fought my way past the chairmen and
chaisemen at the door, and asked my way of the first civil person I
encountered. 'Twas only a little rise up the steps of St. James's
Street, Arlington Street being but a small pocket of Piccadilly, but it
seemed a dull English mile; and my heart thumped when I reached the
corner, and the houses danced before my eyes. I steadied myself by a
post and looked again. At last, after a thousand leagues of wandering,
I was near her! But how to choose between fifty severe and imposing
mansions? I walked on toward that endless race of affairs and fashion,
Piccadilly, scanning every door, nay, every window, in the hope that I
might behold my lady's face framed therein. Here a chair was set down,
there a chariot or a coach pulled up, and a clocked flunky bowing a lady
in. But no Dorothy. Finally, when I had near made the round of each
side, I summoned courage and asked a butcher's lad, whistling as he
passed me, whether he could point out the residence of Mr. Manners.

"Ay," he replied, looking me over out of the corner of his eye, "that I
can. But y'ell not get a glimpse o' the beauty this day, for she's but
just off to Kensington with a coachful o' quality."

And he led me, all in a tremble over his answer, to a large stone
dwelling with arched windows, and pillared portico with lanthorns and
link extinguishers, an area and railing beside it. The flavour of
generations of aristocracy hung about the place, and the big knocker on
the carved door seemed to regard with such a forbidding frown my shabby
clothes that I took but the one glance (enough to fix it forever in my
memory), and hurried on. Alas, what hope had I of Dorothy now!

"What cheer, Richard?" cried the captain when I returned; "have you seen
your friends?"

I told him that I had feared to disgrace them, and so refrained from
knocking--a decision which he commended as the very essence of wisdom.
Though a desire to meet and talk with quality pushed him hard, he would
not go a step to the ordinary, and gave orders to be served in our room,
thus fostering the mystery which had enveloped us since our arrival.
Dinner at the Star and Garter being at the fashionable hour of half after
four, I was forced to give over for that day the task of finding Mr. Dix.

That evening--shall I confess it?--I spent between the Green Park and
Arlington Street, hoping for