y lodgings, more content with my position than I
should have thought possible a week before, and fully determined to make
the best of the future.

All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault alone
that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life. I have, I must
confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors. My landlady, to whom
I had as usual been overkind, impertinently called me in fault for some
particular too small to mention; and I, annoyed that I had allowed her
the freedom upon which she thus presumed, ordered her to leave my
presence. She stood a moment dumb, and then, recalling her
self-possession, "Your bill," said she, "shall be ready this evening,
and to-morrow, madam, you shall leave my house. See," she added, "that
you are able to pay what you owe me; for If I do not receive the
uttermost farthing, no box of yours shall pass my threshold."

I was confounded at her audacity, but, as a whole quarter's income was
due to me, not otherwise affected by the threat. That afternoon, as I
left the solicitor's door, carrying in one hand, and done up in a paper
parcel, the whole amount of my fortune, there befell me one of those
decisive incidents that sometimes shape a life. The lawyer's office was
situated in a street that opened at the upper end upon the Strand and
was closed at the lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron
railings looking on the Thames. Down this street, then, I beheld my
stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very house
I had just left. She was attended by a maid whose face was new to me;
but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and the sight of it,
even from a distance, filled me with generous indignation. Flight was
impossible. There was nothing left but to retreat against the railing,
and with my back turned to the street, pretend to be admiring the barges
on the river or the chimneys of transpontine London.

I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the turbulence
of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed me with a trivial
question. It was the maid whom my stepmother, with characteristic
hardness, had left to await her on the street, while she transacted her
business with the family solicitor. The girl did not know who I was; the
opportunity was too golden to be lost; and I was soon hearing the latest
news of my father's rectory and parish. It did not surprise me to find
that she detested her e