r that there was
no trouble about money--for her journey. Then Lily took her aside and
produced two clean new five-pound notes. "Grace, dear, you won't be
ill-natured. You know I have a little fortune of my own. You know I
can give them without missing them." Grace threw herself into her
friend's arms and wept, but would have none of her money. "Buy a
present from me for your mother,--whom I love though I do not know
her." "I will give her your love," Grace said, "but nothing else."
And then she went.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Hook Court

Mr. Dobbs Broughton and Mr. Musselboro were sitting together on a
certain morning at their office in the City, discussing the affairs
of their joint business. The City office was a very poor place
indeed, in comparison with the fine house which Mr. Dobbs occupied at
the West End; but then City offices are poor places, and there are
certain City occupations which seem to enjoy the greater credit the
poorer are the material circumstances by which they are surrounded.
Turning out of a lane which turns out of Lombard Street, there is a
desolate, forlorn-looking, dark alley, which is called Hook Court.
The entrance to this alley is beneath the first-floor of one of the
houses in the lane, and in passing under this covered way the visitor
to the place finds himself in a small paved square court, at the two
further corners of which there are two open doors; for in Hook Court
there are only two houses. There is No 1, Hook Court, and No 2, Hook
Court. The entire premises indicated by No 1 are occupied by a firm
of wine and spirit merchants, in connexion with whose trade one side
and two angles of the court are always lumbered with crates, hampers,
and wooden cases. And nearly in the middle of the court, though
somewhat more to the wine-merchants' side than to the other, there
is always gaping open a trap-door, leading down to vaults below; and
over the trap there is a great board with a bright advertisement in
very large letters:--

BURTON AND BANGLES
HIMALAYA WINES,
22s 6d per dozen

And this notice is so bright and so large, and the trap-door is
so conspicuous in the court, that no visitor, even to No 2, ever
afterwards can quite divest his memory of those names, Burton and
Bangles, Himalaya wines. It may therefore be acknowledged that Burton
and Bangles have achieved their object in putting up the notice.
The house No 2, small as it seems to be, standing in the jamb of a