! Hadn't the least idea where you were!--Let me have
the pleasure of introducing you to Mrs. Jacox--and to Miss Jacox--and
to Miss Lily. They all know you thoroughly well. Now who would have
thought of our meeting up here! Glorious!'

It was with some curiosity that Earwaker regarded the companions of his
friend Malkin--whose proximity was the last thing he could have
imagined, as only a few weeks ago he had heard of the restless fellow's
departing, on business unknown, for Boston, US. Mrs. Jacox, the widow
whose wrongs had made such an impression on Malkin, announced herself,
in a thin, mealy face and rag-doll figure, as not less than forty,
though her irresponsible look made it evident that years profited her
nothing, and suggested an explanation of the success with which she had
been victimised. She was stylishly dressed, and had the air of enjoying
an unusual treat. Her children were of more promising type, though
Earwaker would hardly have supposed them so old as he knew them to be.
Bella, just beyond her fourteenth year, had an intelligent prettiness,
but was excessively shy; in giving her hand to the stranger she flushed
over face and neck, and her bosom palpitated visibly. Her sister, two
years younger, was a mere child, rather self-conscious, but of laughing
temper. Their toilet suited ill with that of their mother; its
plainness and negligence might have passed muster in London, but here,
under the lucent sky, it seemed a wrong to their budding maidenhood.

'Mrs. Jacox is on the point of returning to England,' Malkin explained.
'I happened to meet her, by chance--I'm always meeting my friends by
chance; you, for instance, Earwaker. She is so good as to allow me to
guide her and the young ladies to a few of the sights of Paris.'

'O Mr. Malkin!' exclaimed the widow, with a stress on the exclamation
peculiar to herself--two notes of deprecating falsetto. 'How can you
say it is good of me, when I'm sure there are no words for your
kindness to us all! If only you knew our debt to your friend, Mr
Earwaker! To our dying day we must all remember it. It is entirely
through Mr. Malkin that we are able to leave that most disagreeable
Rouen--a place I shall never cease to think of with horror. O Mr
Earwaker! you have only to think of that wretched railway station,
stuck between two black tunnels! O Mr. Malkin!'

'What are you doing?' Malkin inquired of the journalist. 'How long
shall you be here? Why haven't I heard f