at our hotel.'

But as she looked over the dreary suburban erections which lined the
road from the railway to the old quarter of the town, it occurred to her
that Somerset would at that time of day be engaged in one or other of
the mediaeval buildings thereabout, and that it would be a much neater
thing to meet him as if by chance in one of these edifices than to call
upon him anywhere. Instead of putting up at any hotel, they left the
maids and baggage at the station; and hiring a carriage, Paula told the
coachman to drive them to such likely places as she could think of.

'He'll never forgive you,' said her aunt, as they rumbled into the town.

'Won't he?' said Paula, with soft faith. 'I'll see about that.'

'What are you going to do when you find him? Tell him point-blank that
you are in love with him?'

'Act in such a manner that he may tell me he is in love with me.'

They first visited a large church at the upper end of a square that
sloped its gravelled surface to the western shine, and was pricked out
with little avenues of young pollard limes. The church within was one to
make any Gothic architect take lodgings in its vicinity for a fortnight,
though it was just now crowded with a forest of scaffolding for repairs
in progress. Mrs. Goodman sat down outside, and Paula, entering, took a
walk in the form of a horse-shoe; that is, up the south aisle, round the
apse, and down the north side; but no figure of a melancholy young
man sketching met her eye anywhere. The sun that blazed in at the west
doorway smote her face as she emerged from beneath it and revealed real
sadness there.

'This is not all the old architecture of the town by far,' she said to
her aunt with an air of confidence. 'Coachman, drive to St. Jacques'.'

He was not at St. Jacques'. Looking from the west end of that building
the girl observed the end of a steep narrow street of antique character,
which seemed a likely haunt. Beckoning to her aunt to follow in the fly
Paula walked down the street.

She was transported to the Middle Ages. It contained the shops of
tinkers, braziers, bellows-menders, hollow-turners, and other quaintest
trades, their fronts open to the street beneath stories of timber
overhanging so far on each side that a slit of sky was left at the top
for the light to descend, and no more. A blue misty obscurity pervaded
the atmosphere, into which the sun thrust oblique staves of light. It
was a street for a mediaevalist to