in an eminently respectable
street. The rent is only L25 a year. I had begun to despair when at last
I found them by chance. The chance was a mere chance, and unworthy of
record. I had to sign a lease for a year, and I did so willingly. The
furniture from our old place in H--shire, which has been stored so long,
will just suit them.

* * * * *

Oct. 1.--Here I am in my two rooms, in the centre of London, and not far
from the offices of the periodicals where occasionally I dispose of an
article or two. The building is at the end of a _cul-de-sac_. The alley
is well paved and clean, and lined chiefly with the backs of sedate and
institutional-looking buildings. There is a stable in it. My own house
is dignified with the title of "Chambers." I feel as if one day the
honour must prove too much for it, and it will swell with pride--and
fall asunder. It is very old. The floor of my sitting-room has valleys
and low hills on it, and the top of the door slants away from the
ceiling with a glorious disregard of what is usual. They must have
quarrelled--fifty years ago--and have been going apart ever since.

* * * * *

Oct. 2.--My landlady is old and thin, with a faded, dusty face. She is
uncommunicative. The few words she utters seem to cost her pain.
Probably her lungs are half choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as free
from this commodity as possible, and has the assistance of a strong girl
who brings up the breakfast and lights the fire. As I have said already,
she is not communicative. In reply to pleasant efforts on my part she
informed me briefly that I was the only occupant of the house at
present. My rooms had not been occupied for some years. There had been
other gentlemen upstairs, but they had left.

She never looks straight at me when she speaks, but fixes her dim eyes
on my middle waistcoat button, till I get nervous and begin to think it
isn't on straight, or is the wrong sort of button altogether.

* * * * *

Oct. 8.--My week's book is nicely kept, and so far is reasonable. Milk
and sugar 7d., bread 6d., butter 8d., marmalade 6d., eggs 1s. 8d.,
laundress 2s. 9d., oil 6d., attendance 5s.; total 12s. 2d.

The landlady has a son who, she told me, is "somethink on a homnibus."
He comes occasionally to see her. I think he drinks, for he talks very
loud, regardless of the hour of the day or night, and tumbles about over