ind him came the britschka with a relay of servants.

They parted with a long, lingering pressure of the hand, which
haunted her young palm all night in dreams. Argemone got into the
carriage, Lancelot jumped into the dog-cart, took the reins, and
relieved his heart by galloping Sandy up the hill, and frightening
the returning coachman down one bank and his led horses up the
other.

'Vogue la Galere, Lancelot? I hope you have made good use of your
time?'

But Lancelot spoke no word all the way home, and wandered till dawn
in the woods around his cottage, kissing the hand which Argemone's
palm had pressed.

CHAPTER VIII: WHITHER?

Some three months slipped away--right dreary months for Lancelot,
for the Lavingtons went to Baden-Baden for the summer. 'The waters
were necessary for their health.' . . . How wonderful it is, by the
bye, that those German Brunnen are never necessary for poor people's
health! . . . and they did not return till the end of August. So
Lancelot buried himself up to the eyes in the Condition-of-the-Poor
question--that is, in blue books, red books, sanitary reports, mine
reports, factory reports; and came to the conclusion, which is now
pretty generally entertained, that something was the matter--but
what, no man knew, or, if they knew, thought proper to declare.
Hopeless and bewildered, he left the books, and wandered day after
day from farm to hamlet, and from field to tramper's tent, in hopes
of finding out the secret for himself. What he saw, of course I
must not say; for if I did the reviewers would declare, as usual,
one and all, that I copied out of the Morning Chronicle; and the
fact that these pages, ninety-nine hundredths of them at least, were
written two years before the Morning Chronicle began its invaluable
investigations, would be contemptuously put aside as at once
impossible and arrogant. I shall therefore only say, that he saw
what every one else has seen, at least heard of, and got tired of
hearing--though alas! they have not got tired of seeing it; and so
proceed with my story, only mentioning therein certain particulars
which folks seem, to me, somewhat strangely, to have generally
overlooked.

But whatever Lancelot saw, or thought he saw, I cannot say that it
brought him any nearer to a solution of the question; and he at last
ended by a sulky acquiescence in Sam Weller's memorable dictum:
'Who it is I can't say; but