, had been as nothing to what occurred in the Row on
the occasion which is now about to be described.

"Aunt Jemima," exclaimed Clara Demijohn, looking out of the window,
"there's that young man come again to Number Eleven, riding on
horseback, with a groom behind to hold him!"

"Groom to hold him!" exclaimed Mrs. Demijohn, jumping, with all her
rheumatism, quickly from her seat, and trotting to the window.

"You look if there aint,--with boots and breeches."

"It must be another," said Mrs. Demijohn, after a pause, during which
she had been looking intently at the empty saddle of the horse which
the groom was leading slowly up and down the Row.

"It's the same that came with young Roden that Saturday," said Clara;
"only he hadn't been walking, and he looked nicer than ever."

"You can hire them all, horses and groom," said Mrs. Demijohn; "but
he'd never make his money last till the end of the month if he went
on in that way."

"They aint hired. They're his own," said Clara.

"How do you know, Miss?"

"By the colour of his boots, and the way he touched his hat, and
because his gloves are clean. He aint a Post Office clerk at all,
Aunt Jemima."

"I wonder whether he can be coming after the widow," said Mrs.
Demijohn. After this Clara escaped out of the room, leaving her aunt
fixed at the window. Such a sight as that groom and those two horses
moving up and down together had never been seen in the Row before.
Clara put on her hat and ran across hurriedly to Mrs. Duffer, who
lived at No. 15, next door but one to Mrs. Roden. But she was
altogether too late to communicate the news as news.

"I knew he wasn't a Post Office clerk," said Mrs. Duffer, who had
seen Lord Hampstead ride up the street; "but who he is, or why, or
wherefore, it is beyond me to conjecture. But I never will give up my
opinion again, talking to your aunt. I suppose she holds out still
that he's a Post Office clerk."

"She thinks he might have hired them."

"Oh my! Hired them!"

"But did you ever see anything so noble as the way he got off his
horse? As for hire, that's nonsense. He's been getting off that
horse every day of his life." Thus it was that Paradise Row was
awe-stricken by this last coming of George Roden's friend.

It was an odd thing to do,--this riding down to Holloway. No one else
would have done it, either lord or Post Office clerk;--with a hired
horse or with private property. There was a hot July sunshine, and
the ro