with
the rest--not that that's much better than starvation. You can take to
my business shortly now; and you'll make a better scene-painter than
ever I could. You've got it in you."

"Do you really think so, Joe?" cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. "Do
you? I'd rather be an artist than at king--Halloo!"

He stopped short in surprise, staring out of the window. Legard looked.
Up the dirty street came a Hansom cab, and stopped at their own door.
The driver alighted, made some inquiry, then opened the cab-door, and a
lady stepped lightly out on the curb-stone--a lady tall and stately,
dressed in black, and closely veiled.

"Now who can this visitor be for?" said Legard. "People in this
neighborhood ain't in the habit of having morning-calls made on them in
cabs. She's coming up stairs."

He held the door open, listening. The lady ascended the first flight of
stairs, stopped on the landing, and inquired of some one for "Mrs.
Martha Brand."

"For granny!" exclaimed the boy. "Joe, I shouldn't wonder if it was some
one about that advertisement, after all."

"Neither should I," said Legard. "There! she's gone in. You'll be sent
for directly, Guy."

Yes, the lady had gone in. She had encountered on the landing a sickly
young woman, with a baby in her arms, who had stared at the name she
inquired for.

"Mrs. Martha Brand? Why, that's mother. Walk in this way, if you please,
ma'am."

She opened a door, and ushered the veiled lady into a small, close room,
poorly furnished. Over a smouldering fire, mending stockings, sat an old
woman, who, notwithstanding the extreme shabbiness and poverty of her
dress, lifted a pleasant, intelligent old face.

"A lady to see you, mother," said the young woman hushing her fretful
baby, and looking curiously at the veiled face.

But the lady made no attempt to raise the envious screen, not even when
Mrs. Martha Brand got up, dropping a respectful little servant's
courtesy, and placing a chair. It was a very thick veil--an impenetrable
shield, and nothing could be discovered of the face behind it but that
it was fixedly pale. She sank into the seat, her face turned to the old
woman behind that sable screen.

"You are Mrs. Brand?"

The voice was refined and patrician. It would have told she was a lady,
even if the rich garments she wore did not.

"Yes, ma'am--your ladyship; Martha Brand."

"And you inserted that advertisement in the _Times_ regarding a child
left in your care, t