ry hanging to their walls. The upper windows,
however, were merely obscured by dust and cobwebs. Her own bedroom
windows only showed the tall front of an opposite house, but climbing
to the higher storey, she could see at the back over the garden wall
the broad sheet of the Thames, covered with boats and wherries, and the
banks provided with steps and stairs, at the opening of every street on
the opposite side, where she beheld a confused mass of trees, churches,
and houses. Nearer, the view to the westward was closed in by a stately
edifice which she did not know to be Somerset House; and from another
window on the east side of the house she saw, over numerous tiled
roofs, a gateway which she guessed to be Temple Bar, and a crowded
thoroughfare, where the people looked like ants, toiling towards the
great dome that rose in the misty distance. Was this the way she was to
see London?

Coming down with a lagging step, she met Madge's face peering up.
"Humph! there you be, my fine miss! No gaping after sweethearts from the
window, or it will be the worse for you."

The terrier growled, as having already adopted his young lady's defence,
and Aurelia, dreading a perilous explosion of his zeal in her cause,
hurried him into her parlour.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE SECOND TASK.

Hope no more,
Since thou art furnished with hidden lore,
To 'scape thy due reward if any day
Without some task accomplished passed away.
MOORE.

The little dog's presence was a comfort, but his night of combat and
scuffling was not a restful one and the poor prisoner's sickness of
heart and nervous terrors grew upon her every hour, with misgivings
lest she should be clinging to a shadow, and sacrificing her return to
Betty's arms for a phantom. There were moments when her anguish of
vague terror and utter loneliness impelled her to long to sign her
renunciation that moment; and when she thought of recurring hours and
weeks of such days and such nights her spirit quailed within her, and
Loveday might have found her less calmly steadfast had she come in the
morning.

She did not come, and this in itself was a disappointment, for at least
she brought a human voice and a pitying countenance which, temptress
though she might be, had helped to bear Aurelia through the first days.
Oh! could she but find anything to do! She had dusted her two rooms as
well as she could