to
Teresa. "The saints preserve us! what headaches and footaches in all
these, if they are as big as that other one!" She went on with the
list--and astonished everybody in the room by suddenly clapping her
hands. Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields. "Ah, but I
remember that! A nice little easy museum in a private house, and all
sorts of pretty things to see. My dear love, trust your old Teresa. Come
to Soane!"

In ten minutes more they were dressed, and on the steps of the hotel.
The bright sunlight, the pleasant air, invited them to walk. On the same
afternoon, when Ovid had set forth on foot for Lincoln's Inn Fields,
Carmina and Teresa set forth on foot for Lincoln's Inn Fields. Trivial
obstacles had kept the man away from the College. Would trivial
obstacles keep the women away from the Museum?

They crossed the Strand, and entered a street which led out of it
towards the North; Teresa's pride in her memory forbidding her thus far
to ask their way.

Their talk--dwelling at first on Italy, and on the memory of Carmina's
Italian mother--reverted to the formidable subject of Mrs. Gallilee.
Teresa's hopeful view of the future turned to the cousins, and drew
the picture of two charming little girls, eagerly waiting to give their
innocent hearts to their young relative from Italy. "Are there only
two?" she said. "Surely you told me there was a boy, besides the girls?"
Carmina set her right. "My cousin Ovid is a great doctor," she continued
with an air of importance. "Poor papa used to say that our family would
have reason to be proud of him." "Does he live at home?" asked simple
Teresa. "Oh, dear, no! He has a grand house of his own. Hundreds of
sick people go there to be cured, and give hundreds of golden
guineas." Hundreds of golden guineas gained by only curing sick people,
represented to Teresa's mind something in the nature of a miracle: she
solemnly raised her eyes to heaven. "What a cousin to have! Is he young?
is he handsome? is he married?"

Instead of answering these questions, Carmina looked over her shoulder.
"Is this poor creature following us?" she asked.

They had now turned to the right, and had entered a busy street leading
directly to Covent Garden. The "creature" (who was undoubtedly following
them) was one of the starved and vagabond dogs of London. Every now and
then, the sympathies of their race lead these inveterate wanderers to
attach themselves, for the time, to some human companio