woman. He did not therefore deign to assist her to
mount.

But there was ONE who did! Perkins was by the side of his Lucy: he
had seen her start back and cry, "La, John!"--had felt her squeeze his
arm--had mounted with her into the coach, and then shouted with a voice
of thunder to the coachman, "Caroline Place, Mecklenburgh Square."

But Mr. Jerningham would have been much more surprised and puzzled if
he had waited one minute longer, and seen this Mr. Perkins, who had
so gallantly escaladed the hackney-coach, step out of it with the most
mortified, miserable, chap-fallen countenance possible.

The fact is, he had found poor Lucy sobbing fit to break her heart, and
instead of consoling her, as he expected, he only seemed to irritate her
further: for she said, "Mr. Perkins--I beg--I insist, that you leave the
carriage." And when Perkins made some movement (which, not being in
the vehicle at the time, we have never been able to comprehend), she
suddenly sprang from the back-seat and began pulling at a large piece
of cord which communicated with the wrist of the gentleman driving; and,
screaming to him at the top of her voice, bade him immediately stop.

This Mr. Coachman did, with a curious, puzzled, grinning air.

Perkins descended, and on being asked, "Vere ham I to drive the young
'oman, sir?" I am sorry to say muttered something like an oath, and
uttered the above-mentioned words, "Caroline Place, Mecklenburgh
Square," in a tone which I should be inclined to describe as both dogged
and sheepish--very different from that cheery voice which he had used
when he first gave the order.

Poor Lucy, in the course of those fatal three hours which had passed
while Mr. Perkins was pacing up and down Baker Street, had received a
lecture which lasted exactly one hundred and eighty minutes--from her
aunt first, then from her uncle, whom we have seen marching homewards,
and often from both together.

Sir George Gorgon and his lady poured out such a flood of advice and
abuse against the poor girl, that she came away from the interview quite
timid and cowering; and when she saw John Perkins (the sly rogue! how
well he thought he had managed the trick!) she shrank from him as if
he had been a demon of wickedness, ordered him out of the carriage, and
went home by herself, convinced that she had committed some tremendous
sin.

While, then, her coach jingled away to Caroline Place, Perkins,
once more alone, bent his steps in the