s no
sufficient warrant for Percival's high spirits at the thought that
he had now won legitimate and regular access to the house; still, it
allowed him to call, it furnished a fair excuse for a visit.

How long he was at his toilet that day, poor boy! How sedulously,
with comb and brush, he sought to smooth into straight precision that
luxuriant labyrinth of jetty curls, which had never cost him a thought
before! Gil Blas says that the toilet is a pleasure to the young, though
a labour to the old; Percival St. John's toilet was no pleasure to him
that anxious morning.

At last he tore himself, dissatisfied and desperate, from the glass,
caught his hat and his whip, threw himself on his horse, and rode, at
first very fast, and at last very slowly, to the old, decayed, shabby,
neglected house that lay hid, like the poverty of fallen pride, amidst
the trim villas and smart cottages of fair and flourishing Brompton.

The same servant who had opened the gate to Ardworth appeared to his
summons, and after eying him for some moments with a listless, stupid
stare, said: "You'll be after some mistake!" and turned away.

"Stop, stop!" cried Percival, trying to intrude himself through the
gate; but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no
mistake at all, my good lady. I have come to see Madame Dalibard, my--my
relation!"

"Your relation!" and again the woman stared at Percival with a look
through the dull vacancy of which some distrust was dimly perceptible.
"Bide a bit there, and give us your name."

Percival gave his card to the servant with his sweetest and most
persuasive smile. She took it with one hand, and with the other turned
the key in the gate, leaving Percival outside. It was five minutes
before she returned; and she then, with the same prim, smileless
expression of countenance, opened the gate and motioned him to follow.

The kind-hearted boy sighed as he cast a glance at the desolate and
poverty-stricken appearance of the house, and thought within himself:
"Ah, pray Heaven she may be my relation; and then I shall have the right
to find her and that sweet girl a very different home!" The old woman
threw open the drawing-room door, and Percival was in the presence of
his deadliest foe! The armchair was turned towards the entrance, and
from amidst the coverings that hid the form, the remarkable countenance
of Madame Dalibard emerged, sharp and earnest, directly fronting the
intruder.

"So," she