slightest provision for her: she has no friends, and I have not even
made it known to any of my own that there is such a person in
existence." Edward Forster thought of his brother, the lawyer, whom he
knew still to be flourishing, although he had never corresponded with
him; and resolved that, as soon as he was able to undertake the journey,
he would go to town, and secure his interest for the little Amber, in
case of any accident happening to himself.

The spring and summer passed away before he found himself strong enough
to undertake the journey. It was late in the autumn that Edward Forster
and Amber took their places in a heavy coach for the metropolis, and
arrived without accident on the day or two subsequent to that on which
Nicholas and Newton had entered it on foot.

Chapter XXVIII

"Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl
Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion,
Here taverns wooing to a pint of 'purl,'
There mails fast flying off, like a delusion.

"Through this, and much, and more, is the approach
Of travellers to mighty Babylon;
Whether they come by horse, or chair, or coach,
With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one."
BYRON.

When Newton Forster and his father arrived at London, they put up at an
obscure inn in the Borough. The next day, Newton set off to discover the
residence of his uncle. The people of the inn had recommended him to
apply to some stationer or bookseller, who would allow him to look over
a red-book; and, in compliance with these instructions, Newton stopped
at a shop in Fleet-street, on the doors of which was written in large
gilt letters--"Law Bookseller." The young men in the shop were very
civil and obliging, and, without referring to the "Guide," immediately
told him the residence of a man so well known as his uncle, and Newton
hastened in the direction pointed out.

It was one of those melancholy days in which London wears the appearance
of a huge scavenger's cart. A lurid fog and mizzling rain, which had
been incessant for the previous twenty-four hours; sloppy pavements, and
kennels down which the muddy torrents hastened to precipitate themselves
into the sewers below; armies of umbrellas, as far as the eye could
reach, now rising, now lowering, to avoid collision; hackney-coaches in
active sloth, their miserable cattle plodding along with their backs
arched and heads and tails drooping like barndoor f