queer''s your motto. Now we cross London Bridge. There's the Tower that
lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, 'cause of
grasping kings--all claws and crown. I'm Republican as far as 'none o'
them'--goes. There's the ships. The sun rises behind 'em, and sets
afore 'em, and you may fancy, if you like, there's always gold in their
rigging. Gals o' your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a
lady?"

"No, uncle, no!" Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added:
"not to you."

"Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm,
it was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn't see
her; and a gal so good and a gal so true ain't to be got for a sister
every day in the year! What are you pulling me for?"

Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they
hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups
and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and
sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid
sodden things, like washed-out bait.

Into this shop he led her, and they took possession of a compartment,
and ordered tea and muffins.

The shop was empty.

"It's one of the expenses of relationship," Anthony sighed, after
probing Dahlia unsatisfactorily to see whether she intended to pay for
both, or at least for herself; and finding that she had no pride at all.
"My sister marries your father, and, in consequence--well! a muffin now
and then ain't so very much. We'll forget it, though it is a breach,
mind, in counting up afterwards, and two-pences every day's equal to a
good big cannonball in the castle-wall at the end of the year. Have you
written home?"

Dahlia's face showed the bright anguish of unshed tears.

"Uncle-oh! speak low. I have been near death. I have been ill for so
long a time. I have come to you to hear about them--my father and Rhoda.
Tell me what they are doing, and do they sleep and eat well, and are not
in trouble? I could not write. I was helpless. I could not hold a pen.
Be kind, dear uncle, and do not reproach me. Please, tell me that they
have not been sorrowful."

A keenness shot from Anthony's eyes. "Then, where's your husband?" he
asked.

She made a sad attempt at smiling. "He is abroad."

"How about his relations? Ain't there one among 'em to write for you
when you're ill?"

"He... Yes, he has relatives. I could not ask them. Oh! I am