ings packed ready to be sent on when she should write for them.

Picotee arrived in town late on a cold February afternoon, bearing a
small bag in her hand. She crossed Westminster Bridge on foot, just
after dusk, and saw a luminous haze hanging over each well-lighted street
as it withdrew into distance behind the nearer houses, showing its
direction as a train of morning mist shows the course of a distant stream
when the stream itself is hidden. The lights along the riverside towards
Charing Cross sent an inverted palisade of gleaming swords down into the
shaking water, and the pavement ticked to the touch of pedestrians' feet,
most of whom tripped along as if walking only to practise a favourite
quick step, and held handkerchiefs to their mouths to strain off the
river mist from their lungs. She inquired her way to Exonbury Crescent,
and between five and six o'clock reached her sister's door.

Two or three minutes were passed in accumulating resolution sufficient to
ring the bell, which when at last she did, was not performed in a way at
all calculated to make the young man Joey hasten to the door. After the
lapse of a certain time he did, however, find leisure to stroll and see
what the caller might want, out of curiosity to know who there could be
in London afraid to ring a bell twice.

Joey's delight exceeded even his surprise, the ruling maxim of his life
being the more the merrier, under all circumstances. The beaming young
man was about to run off and announce her upstairs and downstairs, left
and right, when Picotee called him hastily to her. In the hall her quick
young eye had caught sight of an umbrella with a peculiar horn handle--an
umbrella she had been accustomed to meet on Sandbourne Moor on many happy
afternoons. Christopher was evidently in the house.

'Joey,' she said, as if she were ready to faint, 'don't tell Berta I am
come. She has company, has she not?'

'O no--only Mr. Julian!' said the brother. 'He's quite one of the
family!'

'Never mind--can't I go down into the kitchen with you?' she inquired.
There had been bliss and misery mingled in those tidings, and she
scarcely knew for a moment which way they affected her. What she did
know was that she had run her dear fox to earth, and a sense of
satisfaction at that feat prevented her just now from counting the cost
of the performance.

'Does Mr. Julian come to see her very often?' said she.

'O yes--he's always a-coming--a regula