l you not then congratulate me?"

"I would her birth were other than it is," said the mother.

"I would have her altered in nothing," said the son. "Her birth is
the smallest thing about her, but such as she is I would have her
altered in nothing."

CHAPTER VI.

PARADISE ROW.

About a fortnight after George Roden's return to Holloway,--a
fortnight passed by the mother in meditation as to her son's glorious
but dangerous love,--Lord Hampstead called at No. 11, Paradise Row.
Mrs. Roden lived at No. 11, and Mrs. Demijohn lived at No. 10, the
house opposite. There had already been some discussion in Holloway
about Lord Hampstead, but nothing had as yet been discovered. He
might have been at the house on various previous occasions, but had
come in so unpretending a manner as hardly to have done more than to
cause himself to be regarded as a stranger in Holloway. He was known
to be George's friend, because he had been first seen coming with
George on a Saturday afternoon. He had also called on a Sunday and
walked away, down the Row, with George. Mrs. Demijohn concluded
that he was a brother clerk in the Post Office, and had expressed
an opinion that "it did not signify," meaning thereby to imply
that Holloway need not interest itself about the stranger. A young
Government clerk would naturally have another young Government clerk
for his friend. Twice Lord Hampstead had come down in an omnibus from
Islington; on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come
on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday
half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and
Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being
very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might,
perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed.
Where should a Post Office clerk find his friends except among Post
Office clerks? "Perhaps he is coming after the widow," suggested
Mrs. Duffer. But this also was received with dissent. Mrs. Demijohn
declared that Post Office clerks knew better than to marry widows
with no more than two or three hundred a year, and old enough to
be their mothers. "But why does he come on a Tuesday?" asked Mrs.
Duffer; "and why does he come alone?" "Oh you dear old Mrs. Duffer!"
said Clara Demijohn, the old lady's niece, naturally thinking that
it might not be unnatural that handsome young men should come to
Paradise Row.

All this, however