Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea
shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried
fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar
to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open
windows.

On the pavement and in the roadway, among the cabs and tradesmen's
carts, the children play and yell and screech; and at night the song of
the intoxicated as he rolls homeward, or is conveyed to the nearest cell
by the guardian of the peace he is breaking, flits across the dreams of
those in the Buildings who are so unfortunate as to sleep lightly; and
they are many.

And yet in a small room of a small flat on the fourth floor of this
Babel of noise and unrest sat Nell.

Eighteen months had passed since she made her sacrifice and left Wolfer
House. The black dress in which she looked so slight, and against which
the ivory pallor of her face was accentuated, was worn as mourning for
Mrs. Lorton; for that estimable lady had genteelly faded away, and Nell
and Dick were alone in this transitory world.

The sun was pouring through the open window, and Nell had dragged her
chair into the angle of the wall just out of the reach of the hot beams,
but still near the window, in the hope of catching something of the
smoke-laden air which away out in the country must be blowing so fresh
and sweetly.

As she bent over the coat which she was mending for Dick, she was
thinking of one place over which that same air was at that moment
wafting the scent of the sea and the flowers--Shorne Mills; and, as she
raised her eyes and glanced at the triangular patch of sky which was
framed by the roofs of the opposite houses, she could see the picture
she loved quite distinctly, and almost hear--notwithstanding the
intermezzo banged out by the piano organ in the street below--the songs
and whistling of the fishermen, and the flap of the sails against the
masts. Let the noise in and outside the Buildings be as great as it
might, she could always lose herself in memories of Shorne Mills; and if
sorrow's crown of sorrow be the remembering of happier days, such
remembrance is not without its consolation.

When Dick and she had come to the Buildings, two months ago, Nell felt
as if she should never get used to the crowded place and its
multitudinous discomforts; but time had rendered life, even amid such
surroundings, tolerable; and there were moments in which some phase of
the huma