ll fairy gifts, surely the most desirable in prospect, and the most
embarrassing in practice, would be the magical telescope of Prince Ali,
in the "Arabian Nights." With his glass, it will be remembered, he could
see whatever was happening on whatever part of the earth he chose, and,
though absent, was always able to behold the face of his beloved. How
often would one give Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse, and the
invisible Cap which was made of "a darkness that might be _felt_" to
possess for one hour the Telescope of Fairyland!

Could Maitland and Barton have taken a peep through the tube, while they
were pondering over the means of finding Margaret, their quest would
have been aided, indeed, but they would scarcely have been reassured.
Yet there was nothing very awful, nor squalid, nor alarming, as they
might have expected, anticipated, and dreaded, in what the vision would
have shown. Margaret was not in some foreign den of iniquity, nor,
indeed, in a den at all.

The tube enchanted would have revealed to them Margaret, not very far
off, not in Siberia nor Teheran, but simply in Victoria Square,
Pimlico, S.W. There, in a bedroom, not more than commonly dingy, on the
drawing-room floor, with the rattling old green Venetian blinds drawn
down, Margaret would have been displayed. The testimony of a cloud of
witnesses, in the form of phials and medical vessels, proved that she
had for some time been an invalid. The pretty dusky red of health would
have been seen to have faded from her cheeks, and the fun and daring
had died out of her eyes. The cheeks were white and thin, the eyes were
half-closed from sickness and fatigue, and Margaret, a while ago so
ready of speech, did not even bestir herself to answer the question
which a gentleman, who stood almost like a doctor, in an attitude of
respectful inquiry, was putting as to her health.

He was a tall gentleman, dark, with a ripe kind of face, and full, red,
sensitive, sensual lips, not without a trace of humor. Near the door,
in a protesting kind of attitude, as if there against her will, was a
remarkably handsome young person, attired plainly as a housekeeper, or
upper-servant, The faces of some women appear to have been furnished by
Nature, or informed by habit, with an aspect that seems to say (in fair
members of the less educated classes), "I won't put up with none of them
goings on." Such an expression this woman wears.

"I hope you feel better, my dear?" th