me to walk into his parlour.

His parlour was scarcely less gruesome than his shop. The furniture
looked as if its manufacture had been coeval with the time of the
Meynells, and the ghastly glare of the gas seemed a kind of
anachronism. After a few preliminary observations, which were not
encouraged by Mr. Grewter's manner, I inquired whether he had ever
heard the name of Meynell.

"Yes," he said; "there was a Meynell in this street when I was a young
man--Christian Meynell, a carpet-maker by trade. The business is still
carried on--and a very old business it is, for it was an old business
in Meynell's time; but Meynell died before I married, and his name is
pretty well forgotten in Aldersgate-street by this time."

"Had he no sons?" I asked.

"Well, yes; he had one son, Samuel, a kind of companion of mine. But he
didn't take to the business, and when his father died he let things go
anyhow, as you may say. He was rather wild, and died two or three years
after his father." "Did he die unmarried?"

"Yes. There was some talk of his marrying a Miss Dobberly, whose father
was a cabinet-maker in Jewin-street; but Samuel was too wild for the
Dobberlys, who were steady-going people, and he went abroad, where he
was taken with some kind of fever and died."

"Was this son the only child?"

"No; there were two daughters. The younger of them married; the elder
went to live with her--and died unmarried, I've heard say."

"Do you know whom the younger sister married?" I asked.

"No. She didn't marry in London. She went into the country to visit
some friends, and she married and settled down in those parts--wherever
it might be--and I never heard of her coming back to London again. The
carpet business was sold directly after Samuel Meynell's death. The new
people kept up the name for a good twenty years--'Taylor, late Meynell,
established 1693,' that's what was painted on the board above the
window--but they've dropped the name of Meynell now. People forget old
names, you see, and it's no use keeping to them after they're
forgotten."

Yes, the old names are forgotten, the old people fade off the face of
the earth. The romance of Matthew Haygarth seemed to come to a lame and
impotent conclusion in this dull record of dealers in carpeting.

"You can't remember what part of England it was that Christian
Meynell's daughter went to when she married?"

"No. It wasn't a matter I took much interest in. I don't think I ever
spo