supple figure, the easy, gliding motion,
and the set of the head. For among all the multitude that walk, a truly
beautiful walk is a very rare thing, and so is a truly fine carriage.
Pitt could not take his eye from this figure. A few swift strides
brought him near her, and he followed, watching; balancing hopes and
doubts. That was not Esther as he remembered her; but then years had
gone by; and was not that set of the head on the shoulders precisely
Esther's? He was meditating how he could get another sight of her face,
when she suddenly turned and ran up a flight of steps and went in at a
door, without ever giving him the chance he wanted. She had a little
portfolio under her arm, like a teacher, and she paused to speak to the
servant who opened the door to her; Pitt judged that it was not her own
house. The lady was probably a teacher. Esther could not be a teacher.
But at any rate he would wait and get another sight of her. If she went
in, she would probably come out again.

But Pitt had a tiresome waiting of an hour. He strolled up and down or
stood still leaning against a railing, never losing that door out of
his range of vision. The hour seemed three; however, at the end of it
the lady did come out again, but just when he was at his farthest, and
she turned and went up the street again the way she had come, walking
with a quick step. Pitt followed. Where she had turned into Broadway
she turned out of it, and went down an unattractive side street;
passing from that into another and another, less and less promising
with every corner she turned, till she entered the one which we know
was not at all eligible where Colonel Gainsborough lived. Pitt's hopes
had been gradually falling, and now when the quarry disappeared from
his sight in one of the little humble houses which filled the street,
he for a moment stood still. Could she be living here? He would have
thought she had come merely to visit some poor protege, but that she
had certainly seemed to take a latch-key from her pocket and let
herself in with it. Pitt reviewed the place, waited a few minutes, and
then went up himself the few steps which led to that door, and knocked.
Bell there was none. People who had bells to their doors did not live
in that street.

But as soon as the door was opened Pitt knew where he was; for he
recognised Barker. She was not the one, however, with whom he wished
first to exchange recognitions; so he contented himself with asking