turn, and being perfectly ready to say it again if he
had any new solution to propose.

As he had not, Tom drew down the window-sash, and folded the shutter;
and they left the rooms. He closed the door heavily, as Mr Fips had
desired him; tried it, found it all safe, and put the key in his pocket.

They made a pretty wide circuit in going back to Islington, as they had
time to spare, and Tom was never tired of looking about him. It was well
he had John Westlock for his companion, for most people would have
been weary of his perpetual stoppages at shop-windows, and his frequent
dashes into the crowded carriage-way at the peril of his life, to get
the better view of church steeples, and other public buildings. But John
was charmed to see him so much interested, and every time Tom came back
with a beaming face from among the wheels of carts and hackney-coaches,
wholly unconscious of the personal congratulations addressed to him by
the drivers, John seemed to like him better than before.

There was no flour on Ruth's hands when she received them in the
triangular parlour, but there were pleasant smiles upon her face, and a
crowd of welcomes shining out of every smile, and gleaming in her bright
eyes. By the bye, how bright they were! Looking into them for but
a moment, when you took her hand, you saw, in each, such a capital
miniature of yourself, representing you as such a restless, flashing,
eager, brilliant little fellow--

Ah! if you could only have kept them for your own miniature! But,
wicked, roving, restless, too impartial eyes, it was enough for any one
to stand before them, and, straightway, there he danced and sparkled
quite as merrily as you!

The table was already spread for dinner; and though it was spread with
nothing very choice in the way of glass or linen, and with green-handled
knives, and very mountebanks of two-pronged forks, which seemed to be
trying how far asunder they could possibly stretch their legs without
converting themselves into double the number of iron toothpicks, it
wanted neither damask, silver, gold, nor china; no, nor any other
garniture at all. There it was; and, being there, nothing else would
have done as well.

The success of that initiative dish; that first experiment of hers in
cookery; was so entire, so unalloyed and perfect, that John Westlock and
Tom agreed she must have been studying the art in secret for a long time
past; and urged her to make a full confession of the