the condition of Mr.
Fay's house that night, when he had come across from Holloway through
the darkness and rain to find out for his girl what might be the
truth or falsehood of the report which had reached him.

At 3.0 punctually he was in Paradise Row. Perhaps it was not
unnatural that even then his advent should create emotion. As he
turned down from the main road the very potboy from "The Duchess"
rushed up to him, and congratulated him on his escape. "I have had
nothing to escape," said Lord Hampstead trying to pass on. But
Mrs. Grimley saw him, and came out to him. "Oh, my lord, we are so
thankful;--indeed, we are."

"You are very good, ma'am," said the lord.

"And now, Lord 'Ampstead, mind and be true to that dear young lady
who was well-nigh heart-broke when she heard as it were you who was
smashed up."

He was hurrying on finding it impossible to make any reply to this,
when Miss Demijohn, seeing that Mrs. Grimley had been bold enough to
address the noble visitor to their humble street, remembering how
much she had personally done in the matter, having her mind full of
the important fact that she had been the first to give information on
the subject to the Row generally, thinking that no such appropriate
occasion as this would ever again occur for making personal
acquaintance with the lord, rushed out from her own house, and seized
the young man's hand before he was able to defend himself. "My lord,"
she said, "my lord, we were all so depressed when we heard of it."

"Were you, indeed?"

"All the Row was depressed, my lord. But I was the first who knew
it. It was I who communicated the sad tidings to Miss Fay. It was,
indeed, my lord. I saw it in the _Evening Tell-Tale_, and went across
with the paper at once."

"That was very good of you."

"Thank'ee, my lord. And, therefore, seeing you and knowing you,--for
we all know you now in Paradise Row--"

"Do you now?"

"Every one of us, my lord. Therefore I thought I'd just make bold
to come out and introduce myself. Here's Mrs. Duffer. I hope you'll
let me introduce you to Mrs. Duffer of No. 15. Mrs. Duffer, Lord
Hampstead. And oh, my lord, it will be such an honour to the Row if
anything of that kind should happen."

Lord Hampstead, having with his best grace gone through the ceremony
of shaking hands with Mrs. Duffer, who had come up to him and Clara
just at the step of the Quaker's house, was at last allowed to knock
at the door. Miss Fay would b