without a penny,--which was naturally a very painful
imputation. But when I offered to let her have three weeks' rent in
advance, I saw that wasn't all: there was a taboo as well; she couldn't
let me in without luggage, she said, because it would imperil some luck
or talisman to which she frequently alluded as the Respectability of her
Lodgings. This Respectability seems a very great fetich. I was obliged
at last, in order to ensure a night's lodging of any sort, to appease
it by promising I'd go up to London by the first train to-day, and fetch
down my luggage."

"Then you've things at Charing Cross, in the cloak-room perhaps?" Philip
suggested, somewhat relieved; for he felt sure Bertram Ingledew must
have told Miss Blake it was HE who had recommended him to Heathercliff
House for furnished apartments.

"Oh, dear, no; nothing," Bertram responded cheerfully. "Not a sack to
my back. I've only what I stand up in. And I called this morning just to
ask as I passed if you could kindly direct me to an emporium in London
where I could set myself up in all that's necessary."

"A WHAT?" Philip interposed, catching quick at the unfamiliar word with
blank English astonishment, and more than ever convinced, in spite of
denial, that the stranger was an American.

"An emporium," Bertram answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice: "a
magazine, don't you know; a place where they supply things in return
for money. I want to go up to London at once this morning and buy what I
require there."

"Oh, A SHOP, you mean," Philip replied, putting on at once his most
respectable British sabbatarian air. "I can tell you of the very best
tailor in London, whose cut is perfect; a fine flower of tailors: but
NOT to-day. You forget you're in England, and this is Sunday. On the
Continent, it's different: but you'll find no decent shops here open
to-day in town or country."

Bertram Ingledew drew one hand over his high white brow with a strangely
puzzled air. "No more I will," he said slowly, like one who by degrees
half recalls with an effort some forgotten fact from dim depths of his
memory. "I ought to have remembered, of course. Why, I knew that,
long ago. I read it in a book on the habits and manners of the English
people. But somehow, one never recollects these taboo days, wherever
one may be, till one's pulled up short by them in the course of one's
travels. Now, what on earth am I to do? A box, it seems, is the Open,
Sesame of the situ