know the end of that sentence. And I listened
at the head of the stairs, shivering, but all that I could hear was that
Mrs. Benedict asked Mr. Copley to be her own architect. Her architect,
indeed! That woman ought not to be at large--so rich and good-looking
and unconscientious!

* * * * *

_He_

York, _July 5_.

I had just established myself comfortably near to Miss Van Tyck's hotel,
and found a landlady after my own heart in Mrs. Pickles, No. 6,
Micklegate, when Miss Van Tyck, aided and abetted, I fear, by the
romantic Miss Schuyler, elected to change her quarters, and I, of
course, had to change too. Mine is at present a laborious (but not
unpleasant) life. The causes of Miss Schuyler's removal, as I have been
given to understand by the lady herself, were some particularly pleasing
window-boxes in a lodging in High Petergate Street; boxes overflowing
with pink geraniums and white field-daisies. No one (she explains) could
have looked at this house without desiring to live in it; and when she
discovered, during a somewhat exhaustive study of the premises, that the
maid's name was Susan Strangeways, and that she was promised in marriage
to a brewer's apprentice called Sowerbutt, she went back to her
conventional hotel and persuaded her aunt to remove without delay. If
Miss Schuyler were offered a room at the Punchbowl Inn in the
Gillygate and a suite at the Grand Royal Hotel in Broad Street, she
would choose the former unhesitatingly; just as she refused refreshment
at the best caterer's this afternoon and dragged Mrs. Benedict and me
into 'The Little Snug,' where an alluring sign over the door announced
'A Homely Cup of Tea for Twopence.' But she would outgrow all that; or,
if she didn't, I have common-sense enough for two; or if I hadn't, I
shouldn't care a hang.

Is it not a curious dispensation of Providence that, just when Aunt
Celia is confined to her room with a cold, Mrs. Benedict should join our
party and spend her days in our company? She drove to the Merchants'
Hall and the Cavalry Barracks with us, she walked on the city walls with
us, she even dared the 'homely' tea at 'The Little Snug'; and at that
moment I determined I wouldn't build her memorial church for her, even
at a most princely profit.

On crossing Lendal Bridge we saw the river Ouse running placidly through
the town, and a lot of little green boats moored at a landing-stage.

'How delightful it w