ectory. Excuse me--I am a good deal pressed for time;" and with a bow
he went off, the manuscript under his arm.

"Well, it is really in his hands, at all events," thought Katherine,
looking wistfully after it.

A boy with inky hands here placed that thick volume, the Post-Office
Directory, before her, and she proceeded to search confusedly among the
endless pages of names, a little strengthened and cheered by her brief
interview with the publisher. It seemed that she was in a lucky vein:
trouble is always conducive to superstition. When visible hope fails,
poor human hearts turn to the invisible and the improbable.

At last she paused at "John Wilmot Liddell, 27 Legrave Crescent, Camden
Town, N. W." That must be her uncle; they were all Wilmot Liddells. How
to reach his abode was the question.

The inky boy soon gave her the requisite information. "You take a
Waterloo 'bus at Piccadilly Circus; it runs through to Camden Town; that
is, to the beginning of Camden Town," he said. Katherine thanked him,
and again set forth.

It was a long, tedious drive. The omnibus was crammed with warm
passengers and damp umbrellas, but Katherine was too racked with
impatience and fear to heed small discomforts. Would her dreaded
relative order her out of his sight at once? Was her interview with the
publisher a good omen?

At last she reached the end of her journey, and addressing herself to
the tutelary policeman solemnly pacing past the Tavern where the omnibus
paused, she asked to be directed to Legrave Crescent.

It was an old-fashioned row of houses, before them a few sooty trees in
a half-moon of grass, one side railed off from the street and dignified
with gates at either end--gates which were always open.

The place had a still, deserted air, but about the middle stood a cab,
on which a rheumatic driver, assisted by a small boy, was placing a
cumbrous box. As Katherine approached she found that the house before
which it stood bore the number she sought, and on reaching it she found
the door held open by a little smutty girl, the very lowest type of
slavey, with unkempt hair, and a rough holland apron of the grimiest
aspect. On the top step stood a stout woman, fairly well dressed in a
large shawl and a straw bonnet largely decorated with crushed artificial
flowers; a very red, angry face appeared beneath it, with watery eyes
and a coarse, half-open mouth. All this Katherine saw, but hardly
observed, so strongly was her