young friends into
mourning; not into real mourning, that is; Court mourning they are
rather proud of. But a doll clergyman, my dear,--glossy black curls
and whiskers--uniting two of my young friends in matrimony,' said Miss
Jenny, shaking her forefinger, 'is quite another affair. If you don't
see those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's Jack
Robinson!'

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into
whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and was displaying
it for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock was heard at the
street-door. Riah went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in,
with the grave and courteous air that sat so well upon him, a gentleman.

The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even in the moment
of his casting his eyes upon her, there was something in his manner
which brought to her remembrance Mr Eugene Wrayburn.

'Pardon me,' said the gentleman. 'You are the dolls' dressmaker?'

'I am the dolls' dressmaker, sir.'

'Lizzie Hexam's friend?'

'Yes, sir,' replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. 'And Lizzie
Hexam's friend.'

'Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request of
Mr Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr Riah chances to know that I am Mr
Mortimer Lightwood, and will tell you so.'

Riah bent his head in corroboration.

'Will you read the note?'

'It's very short,' said Jenny, with a look of wonder, when she had read
it.

'There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very precious. My dear
friend Mr Eugene Wrayburn is dying.'

The dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little piteous cry.

'Is dying,' repeated Lightwood, with emotion, 'at some distance from
here. He is sinking under injuries received at the hands of a villain
who attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his bedside. He is
almost always insensible. In a short restless interval of sensibility,
or partial sensibility, I made out that he asked for you to be brought
to sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of the indistinct
sounds he made, I caused Lizzie to hear them. We were both sure that he
asked for you.'

The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly from
the one to the other of her two companions.

'If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with his
last wish--intrusted to me--we have long been much more than
brothers--unfulfilled. I sha