gh were then their aspirations! The Temple,
too, seemed to have lost youth and gaiety. No longer did he meet his
old friends in the eating-houses and taverns. Everything had been
dispersed or lost. Some were married, some had died.

Then the solitude grew more unbearable and he turned from it, hoping
he might meet some one he knew. As he passed up Temple Lane he saw a
slender woman dressed in black, talking to the policemen. He had
often seen her about the Courts and Buildings, and had accosted her,
but she had passed without heeding. Curious to hear who and what she
was, Mike entered into conversation with one of the policemen.

"She! we calls her old Specks, sir."

"I have often seen her about, and I spoke to her once, but she didn't
answer."

"She didn't hear you, sir; she's a little deaf. A real good sort,
sir, is old Jenny. She's always about here. She was brought out in
the Temple; she lived eight years with a Q.C., sir. He's dead. A
strapping fine wench she was then, I can tell you."

"And what does she do now?"

"She has three or four friends here. She goes to see Mr.--I can't
think of his name--you know him, the red-whiskered man in Dr.
Johnson's Buildings. You have seen him in the Probate Court many a
time." And then in defence of her respectability, if not of her
morals, the policeman said, "You'll never see her about the streets,
sir, she only comes to the Temple."

Old Jenny stood talking to the younger member of the force. When she
didn't hear him she cooed in the soft, sweet way of deaf women; and
her genial laugh told Mike that the policeman was not wrong when he
described her as a real good sort. She spoke of her last 'bus, and on
being told the time gathered up her skirts and ran up the Lane.

Then the policemen related anecdotes concerning their own and the
general amativeness of the Temple.

"But, lor, sir, it is nothing now to what it used to be! Some years
ago, half the women of London used to be in here of a night; now
there's very little going on--an occasional kick up, but nothing to
speak of."

"What are you laughing at?" said Mike, looking from one to the other.

The policemen consulted each other, and then one said--

"You didn't hear about the little shindy we had here last night, sir?
It was in Elm Court, just behind you, sir. We heard some one shouting
for the police; we couldn't make out where the shouting came from
first, we were looking about--the echo in these Courts mak