might have known. We have lived here for many years, and have seen
many changes. But there is no reason to suppose that she was ever here.
We have first to learn where the table came from before we can get any
clue that can be followed."

So those two, Miss Saxon and her eager lodger, went out together while
the morning was still fresh and bright.

Looking back on that morning afterwards, Elsie remembered that everybody
seemed to be seeking something. People were hastening along; women were
going to the churches where there were daily services; sisters, in their
white caps and black draperies, marshalled a troop of little girls in
red cloaks, and seemed to have a world of business on their hands; men
stepped on briskly with a preoccupied air. In all there was the great
expectant human nature ever urging onward. In all there was the
universal life-quest. Many, if they had known what manner of quest it
was which had called Elsie forth, would have laughed her to scorn;
others would have wondered; some might have wished her God-speed.

Leaving the two churches behind, Miss Saxon led the way into another
street in which a perpetual market was held. Here there were hungry
faces, sottish faces, sickly faces, and an endless pushing and jostling
around the costermongers' barrows. It was a touching thing to see the
poor bargaining for flowers--ay, and a hopeful thing, too, to those who
can interpret signs aright.

They came at length to an old horse-hair sofa, an iron bedstead, a bath,
and two or three hearth-rugs; and behind these articles there was a
narrow door, which Elsie entered with some reluctance.

If you are fastidious or superstitious, a broker's shop in a low
neighbourhood is hardly the place that you will choose to visit. One
does not know what unwholesome associations may be clinging to the
chairs and carpets and pillows which hem you in on every side; or one
naturally recalls wild stories of haunted banjoes and tambourines, and
tables which are said to slide about in an uncanny fashion of their own
accord.

Elsie was no weaker-minded than most women, but it must be confessed
that she followed her guide through that dark doorway after a moment's
hesitation.

There was, however, nothing weird about the aspect of the woman who came
forward, with a baby in her arms, to greet Miss Saxon. She was still
young and pretty, with that delicate London prettiness which meets one
in these crowded thoroughfares at every