calculation, reached the conclusion that the highwayman Frances had
recognized and the man she loved and hated were one and the same person.
However, Nelly had the good taste to keep the result of her calculations
to herself, and dropped the subject which seemed so distasteful to her
companion.

When Frances and Nelly reached the landing at the water stairs just above
the Bridge, they left their barge and walked up Gracious Street (called
by some Grace Church Street, though, in fact, it should be Grass Church
Street) to the Old Swan Tavern on the east side of the street, a little
above Eastcheap.

The Old Swan was a picturesque structure, beautiful in its quaintness,
sweet in its cleanliness, and lovable in its ancient air of hospitality.
Its token, a full-grown swan, was the best piece of sign painting in
London. Its kitchen was justly celebrated. The old inn was kept by Henry
Pickering, a man far above his occupation in manner, education, and
culture. He had lived many years in France, where he had married a woman
of good station, and where his only child, Bettina, whom we called Betty,
was born and lived during her early childhood. Pickering's wife died in
France, and his fortunes failed, so he returned to England, bought the
Old Swan, and soon became rich again.

The Old Swan Tavern must not be confused with the Old Swan wharf and
stairs, which were a short distance below the Bridge.

Neither Frances nor Nelly had ever visited the old tavern before, so,
being unacquainted with the private entrance, Nelly marched bravely into
the tap-room and asked Pickering to show them to a quiet dining room.

Two unescorted ladies of quality taking dinner at even so respectable a
house as the Old Swan was an adventure well calculated to shock the
judicious, but Nelly did not care a straw for appearances, and Frances
hardly knew how questionable the escapade was.

When Pickering had seated his beautiful guests in the small dining room
adjoining the tap-room, he returned to the bar and sent his daughter
Betty to serve them. She was a beautiful girl of eighteen, who had
returned only a few months before from France, where she had spent three
or four winters in a convent, her summers having been spent with her
father.

There was no fairer skin nor sweeter face than Betty Pickering's. The
expression of her great brown eyes, with their arching brows, was so
demure as to give the impression that somewhere back in the shadow of
t