Lucy, at the very first moment, had recalled
the handsome face, the black Spanish eyes, and
moustache. These things made the same impression
on her as they would on any of her sisters.

"Colonel Vivian!" she exclaimed, eagerly.
"Ah! so it is!" She put out her hand.

So it had been, the very first second she
came out of the shop; but who can help this
little worldly training?

"You have come back from Paris! Are
you going to stay? Papa will be so glad!"

There was a cordiality in her greeting that
touched him.

"I hardly know what I shall be able to do.
I am so weary, and have gone through so much.
I feel as if I were going to have an old illness
back on me. But I will fight it off, if it were
only," he said, smiling, "to avoid a sick-room
at a hotel."

"You do look ill," she said, impetuously;
"indeed you are ill. I saw it at once. You
are tired and overworked. Shall I go home,
and tell papa?"

"It is nothing," he said, leaning wearily against
the door of the little shop. "I have gone
through much worse, though I thought I
should have died in that dreadful coupé. I
must only fight it off, as I have often fought it
off before. I meant to have gone on to-night,
as I couldn't endure the hotel; and as a capital
preparation, I am going on that most weary of
all searches, hunting for lodgings—going up-
stairs here, and meeting strange bargaining
faces there. It is a dreadful business, and I
shrink from it."

"Oh," said Lulu, eagerly, "we could tell you
of a place—a charming one—close to us. Oh,
it would exactly suit you! I know it would.
So quiet; and they would give the world to
have a person like you with them."

He smiled. "Let us go and take them
now. You are quite a house-agent, and I am
greatly obliged to you. It comes so welcome,
after the behaviour of a pompous Samaritan
up at the diligence-office, and who quite put me
aside when I asked him what I asked you."

"Mr. Blacker, I am sure," said Lucy, laughing.

Striking out of the Place, and turning up
one of the streets that led away to the
town, they were not long in getting to
"Robert's," the house with a court—the
only one in that quarter—near where the
Dacres lodged. On the way was the old
church, a yellow, Normandy pile, rough and
jagged, and with a humped effect about its
old shoulders, which, when lit up at night
with its tall ragged window, its bent
stained-glass, its grand stone disorder, its
luxurious rankness of carved and shaken
extravagance, seemed like an old mediæval shrine
out of the Hôtel Cluny. For of nights it
was often lit up while official evening service
was going on—some little pastoral rite to
which no one need go, but to which every
one that passed turned in for a few minutes;
it might be to see the pretty fishing-girls, who
were to walk in procession in a few weeks.

Robert's was a neat, comfortable clean place—
had been considered even handsome in old days,
when one of Louis the Sixteenth's intendants
had lived there. The court was a great feature.
Down in the Great-street it would have brought
three times the rent—an addition that would
have been very welcome to the hard-working
couple who owned it.

Exactly opposite to where the Dacres lodged
was a little archway and court, and at the corner
of the court a small shop. It was kept by
a young pair, newly married, who had waited
what seemed to them an eternity; and at last,
in despair of any hope of things bettering,
had plunged desperately, and, with a little
aid from friends, who were watching them
("Harcourt Dacres, Esq., a napoleon"), had
started this little establishment. Once
embarked, they worked frantically, for the liability
hanging over them was tremendous; and people
noticed the handsome young boy of a husband
sawing blocks of wood on the little X-shaped
frame all day and night in a manner that would
put to shame any gentleman associated with the
milling interest, whether living on the Dee or
elsewhere. The young wife laboured away
within at washing; for they strove in a hundred
ways to make out the dreadful sum required by
a severe landlord; but their grand dependence
were the "apartments," which had let but
indifferently during the past season. Lucy was
deeply concerned for the struggle of these her
protégés, and had seen their young and handsome
faces growing every day more wistful and
contracted with anxiety and responsibility, and
her delight at being able to help them in
this house-agency way overcame all diffidence
about speaking so intimately to a stranger.
She led him in triumph to the house. She
found the pair more wistful and anxious still,
going over their accounts in a sort of council.
She brought joy and hope with her, and almost
danced with delight as she saw their brightening
faces. The rooms were pretty, bright, clean, and
cheerfully furnished.

She went over to tell her father, who, she
knew, would be overjoyed, and found him in
one of his most buoyant moods.

"A party, Lulu, my chirrup," he called out.
"A little gaiety for you. The swells are on
view to-night at Mother Dalrymple's; and
Blacker's the showman. He can't keep me
in his menagerie, as he does the herd. I never
mind him. Go nicely dressed, pet; your little
white simple frock; and we'll be neat as nine-
pins. Poor mamma here will mope at home."

Then Lucy told her adventure. "The handsome
man has come back, papa, and is going
to stay opposite. Such a face, Harco dear,
like the old Spanish cardinal we saw in the
Museum! I could study it like a picture. He's
worth all the Frenchmen here."

"Witch!" said her father, with his "fond"
manner. "Nice training I've given you at
Miss Pringle's—bringing off gentlemen with
Spanish faces to lodgings opposite, and have
'em convenient for study. Ah, my young lady, if