side who or
what sort of people lived in each. If one could only get round to the
rear of the court, one might get some light, for the backs of houses are
generally off their guard, and the Five Sisters who look alike in their
dimity caps might possibly have more distinct characters when not
dressed for company. Perhaps, after the caps are off, and the spectacles
removed--But what outrageous sentiments are we drifting toward!

There was a cause for Nicholas Judge's hesitation. In one of those
houses he had good reason to believe lived an aunt of his, the only
relation left to him in the world, so far as he knew, and by so slender
a thread was he held to her that he knew only her maiden name. Through
the labyrinth of possible widowhoods, one of which at least was actual,
and the changes in condition which many years would effect, he was to
feel his way to the Fair Rosamond by this thread. Nicholas was a wise
young man, as will no doubt appear when we come to know him better, and,
though a fresh country youth, visiting the city for the first time, was
not so indiscreet as to ask bluntly at each door, until he got
satisfaction, "Does my Aunt Eunice live here?" As the doors in the court
were all shut and equally dumb, he resolved to take the houses in order,
and proposing to himself the strategy of asking for a drink of water,
and so opening the way for further parley, he stood before the door of
Number One.

He raised the knocker, (for there was no bell,) and tapped in a
hesitating manner, as if he would take it all back in case of an
egregious mistake. There was a shuffle in the entry; the door opened
slowly, disclosing an old and tidy negro woman, who invited Nicholas in
by a gesture, and saying, "You wish to see master?" led him on through a
dark passage without waiting for an answer. "Certainly," he thought, "I
want to see the master more than I want a drink of water: I will keep
that device for the next house"; and, obeying the lead of the servant,
he went up stairs, and was ushered into a room, where there was just
enough dusky light to disclose tiers of books, a table covered with
papers, and other indications of a student's abode.

Nicholas's eye had hardly become accustomed to the dim light, when there
entered the scholar himself, the master whom he was to see: a small old
man, erect, with white hair and smooth forehead, beneath which projected
two beads of eyes, that seemed, from their advanced position,
endea