me to see which way Griselda went.

"To Crown Alley--a low place! By Jove! this is a queer notion. And with
that jackanapes, too, who sets up for being so pious! We won't follow
them further," he said, taking out an elaborately-chased snuff-box and
offering it to his friend. "We won't follow them--this is enough."

"You are that fair lady's devoted slave, so report says. What are you
about, Danby, to let another get before you? It is not like you!"

"No, it is _not_ like me; you are right, sir. But I am not beaten out
of the field yet. Crown Alley, forsooth! haunted by the scum of the
theatre! Ah! ha! We must unearth this rat from its hole, and I am the
man to do it!"

"You are well fitted for the business, I must say," was the rejoinder,
with a laugh.

CHAPTER IX.

WATCHED!

Scenes of poverty and sickness are familiar now to many a good and fair
woman, of whom it may be said in the words of the poet Lowell, that

"Stairs, to sin and sorrow known,
Sing to the welcome of her feet."

But few indeed were the high-born ladies a hundred and twenty years ago
who ever penetrated the dark places where their suffering brothers and
sisters lived and died in penury and want.

Class distinction was then rigid, and the sun of womanly tenderness and
compassion had not as yet risen on the horizon with healing on its
wings.

Thus the two wretched attics, furnished with the barest necessities of
life--to which she ascended by dark, narrow stairs--was indeed a new
world to Griselda Mainwaring.

She shrank back when the door of the room was opened, and turned away
her head from the pitiful sight before her. The sick man was propped up
on his miserable bed, the child kneeling by him listening to, and trying
to soothe, his incoherent mutterings.

Leslie Travers went in first and touched the child's shoulder.

"I have brought the lady to see you, and to ask what she can do for
you."

Instead of answering, Norah held up her hand as if to beg Leslie to be
silent, and continued to stroke her father's long thin hands with one of
hers, while with the other she pressed the rag of vinegar and water on
his burning brow.

Presently the muttering ceased, and the breathing became more regular,
and then Norah rose, and said in a low voice:

"Nothing stops his wild talk till I kneel by him and hold his hand, and
stroke his forehead; that is why I could not speak, sir." Then the child
went up to the threshold of the