he cried, with infinite tenderness, "have I done to deserve
all this sympathy? My dear aunt! my dear Miss Clack! I have merely been
mistaken for somebody else. I have only been blindfolded; I have only
been strangled; I have only been thrown flat on my back, on a very thin
carpet, covering a particularly hard floor. Just think how much worse it
might have been! I might have been murdered; I might have been robbed.
What have I lost? Nothing but Nervous Force--which the law doesn't
recognise as property; so that, strictly speaking, I have lost nothing
at all. If I could have had my own way, I would have kept my adventure
to myself--I shrink from all this fuss and publicity. But Mr. Luker made
HIS injuries public, and my injuries, as the necessary consequence,
have been proclaimed in their turn. I have become the property of the
newspapers, until the gentle reader gets sick of the subject. I am very
sick indeed of it myself. May the gentle reader soon be like me! And how
is dear Rachel? Still enjoying the gaieties of London? So glad to hear
it! Miss Clack, I need all your indulgence. I am sadly behind-hand with
my Committee Work and my dear Ladies. But I really do hope to look in at
the Mothers'-Small-Clothes next week. Did you make cheering progress at
Monday's Committee? Was the Board hopeful about future prospects? And
are we nicely off for Trousers?"

The heavenly gentleness of his smile made his apologies irresistible.
The richness of his deep voice added its own indescribable charm to
the interesting business question which he had just addressed to me.
In truth, we were almost TOO nicely off for Trousers; we were quite
overwhelmed by them. I was just about to say so, when the door opened
again, and an element of worldly disturbance entered the room, in the
person of Miss Verinder.

She approached dear Mr. Godfrey at a most unladylike rate of speed,
with her hair shockingly untidy, and her face, what I should call,
unbecomingly flushed.

"I am charmed to see you, Godfrey," she said, addressing him, I grieve
to add, in the off-hand manner of one young man talking to another.
"I wish you had brought Mr. Luker with you. You and he (as long as
our present excitement lasts) are the two most interesting men in
all London. It's morbid to say this; it's unhealthy; it's all that a
well-regulated mind like Miss Clack's most instinctively shudders at.
Never mind that. Tell me the whole of the Northumberland Street story
dire