live, and I will come, perhaps; or at any rate send
someone to give you help."

"We live in Crown Alley; but Brian Bellis will tell you, madam. Oh!" the
child said, "you are beautiful as the princess in the play; and you are
good too, I know."

"Come, be off, you little wretch. We don't care to stay here all night
for you, and orders waiting," said one of the chair-men.

"Will you find out Brian Bellis for me? Will you discover from Miss
Herschel if the tale is true--now--I mean now? I will pay you extra for
waiting," Griselda said to the men.

"Can't wait to obleege you, miss; if you don't step in we shall have to
charge double fare."

Then Griselda got into the chair; the lid was let down with a jerk; the
men took up the poles, and set off at a quick trot to North Parade.

The child was still standing on the doorstep, and Leslie Travers said:

"You must not stand here. The lady will keep her promise, you may be
sure. Now then!"

The child turned sorrowfully away, and the click of her pattens was
heard on the stone pavement getting fainter and fainter in the distance.

Leslie Travers was thoughtful beyond the average of the young men of his
type in those days, and as Miss Herschel's servant shut the door--much
wondering what all the delay had been about--he gathered his loose cloak
round him, and walked towards the house his mother had taken in King
Street, pondering much on the inequalities of life.

"Some star-gazing," he thought, "and with their chief aims set above the
heavens; some singing and dancing; some working mischief--deadly
mischief--by their lives; and some, like that poor child, dying of
starvation. Yes, and some are praying to God for the safety of their own
souls, or thanking Him that they are safe, and forgetting, as it seems,
the souls of others--nay, that they have souls at all! And others, like
that angel, whose face is like the fair lady of Dante's dream, or
vision, seem to draw the beholder upward by the very force of their own
purity and beauty."

This may sound very high-flown language for a lover, but Leslie Travers
lived in a day of ornate expression of sentiment, as the effusions in
Lady Miller's vase at Batheaston abundantly testified.

Leslie Travers was the son of a Lincolnshire squire, who owned a few
acres, and had lived the isolated life of the country gentlemen of those
times.

Leslie was the only son, and he had been sent to Cambridge; but his
health failed before he