oh do!'

'Eh?' cried Walter; 'what is the matter?'

'Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs's Gardens, if you please!' said Susan.

'There!' cried the coachman, appealing to Walter, with a sort of
exalting despair; 'that's the way the young lady's been a goin' on
for up'ards of a mortal hour, and me continivally backing out of no
thoroughfares, where she would drive up. I've had a many fares in this
coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.'

'Do you want to go to Staggs's Gardens, Susan?' inquired Walter.

'Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?' growled the coachman.

'I don't know where it is!' exclaimed Susan, wildly. 'Mr Walter, I was
there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling Master
Paul, on the very day when you found Miss Floy in the City, for we lost
her coming home, Mrs Richards and me, and a mad bull, and Mrs Richards's
eldest, and though I went there afterwards, I can't remember where it
is, I think it's sunk into the ground. Oh, Mr Walter, don't desert
me, Staggs's Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy's darling--all our
darlings--little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr Walter!'

'Good God!' cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?'

'The pretty flower!' cried Susan, wringing her hands, 'has took the
fancy that he'd like to see his old nurse, and I've come to bring her to
his bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle's Gardens, someone pray!'

Greatly moved by what he heard, and catching Susan's earnestness
immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand,
dashed into it with such ardour that the coachman had enough to do
to follow closely as he ran before, inquiring here and there and
everywhere, the way to Staggs's Gardens.

There was no such place as Staggs's Gardens. It had vanished from the
earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces now
reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a
vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where the
refuse-matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone; and in
its frowsy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich goods and
costly merchandise. The old by-streets now swarmed with passengers and
vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had stopped disheartened
in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within themselves, originating
wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging to themselves, and never
tried nor thought of until they sprung into existence. Bridges t