t is true she had but a glimpse of them before the doors
of John Street closed again upon its captives, but the glimpse was
sometimes exhilarating, and the consequent regret was tempered with
hope. Among those whom she had thus met a year before was a young
barrister of the name of Gideon Forsyth.

About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate tampered
with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble had carried Mr.
Forsyth to the corner of John Street; and about the same moment Miss
Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thundering double knock.

Mr. Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man; he would have been
happier if he had had more money and less uncle. One hundred and twenty
pounds a year was all his store; but his uncle, Mr. Edward Hugh
Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome allowance and a great deal
of advice, couched in language that would probably have been judged
intemperate on board a pirate ship. Mr. Bloomfield was indeed a figure
quite peculiar to the days of Mr. Gladstone; what we may call (for the
lack of an accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having acquired years
without experience, he carried into the Radical side of politics those
noisy, after-dinner-table passions, which we are more accustomed to
connect with Toryism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions
of Mr. Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the temper and the sympathies of
that extinct animal, the Squire; he admired pugilism, he carried a
formidable oaken staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to
know which would have more volcanically stirred his choler--a person who
should have defended the established church, or one who should have
neglected to attend its celebrations. He had besides some levelling
catchwords, justly dreaded in the family circle; and when he could not
go so far as to declare a step un-English, he might still (and with
hardly less effect) denounce it as unpractical. It was under the ban of
this lesser excommunication that Gideon had fallen. His views on the
study of law had been pronounced unpractical; and it had been intimated
to him, in a vociferous interview punctuated with the oaken staff, that
he must either take a new start and get a brief or two, or prepare to
live on his own money.

No wonder if Gideon was moody. He had not the slightest wish to modify
his present habits; but he would not stand on that, since the recall of
Mr. Bloomfield's allowance woul