he house
contained ten rooms in all, and its population (including seven
children) amounted to twenty-three. In this warm weather the atmosphere
within doors might occasionally be a trifle close, but Shaftesbury
Avenue is a fine broad street, and has great advantages of situation.

To Mr. Gammon's casual inquiry, Mrs. Bubb replied that she neither knew
nor cared whither Polly had betaken herself. Himself having no great
curiosity in the matter, and being much absorbed in his endeavour to
obtain an engagement with the house of Quodling, he let Polly slip from
his mind for a few days, until one morning came a letter from her.
Positively, and to his vast surprise, a letter addressed to him by Miss
Sparkes, with her abode fully indicated in the usual place. True, the
style of the epistle was informal. It began:

"You took advantage of me because there wasn't a man in the house to
take my part, as I don't call that grinning monkey of a Cheeseman a man
at all. If you like to call where I am now, I shall have the pleasure
of introducing you to somebody that will give you the good hiding you
deserve for being a coward and a brute.

"Miss SPARKES"

Gammon laughed over this for half an hour. He showed it to Mrs. Bubb,
who was again on the old terms with him, and Mrs. Bubb wanted to
exhibit it to Mrs. Cheeseman.

"No, don't do that," he interposed gently. "We'll keep it between
ourselves."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. The girl can't help herself; she was born that way,
you know."

"I only hope she won't pay some rough to follow you at night and bash
you," said Mrs. Bubb warningly.

"I don't think that. No, no; Polly's bark is worse than her bite any
day."

On the evening of that day, about ten o'clock, he chanced to be in
Oxford Street, and as he turned southward it occurred to him that he
would so far act upon Polly's invitation as to walk down the Avenue and
glance at the house where she lived. He did so, and it surprised him to
see that she had taken up her abode in so mean-looking a place; he was
not aware, of course, that. Miss Waghorn found the quarters good enough
for her own more imposing charms and not less brilliant wardrobe.

Walking on, at Cambridge Circus he came face to face with Miss Sparkes
herself, accompanied by Miss Waghorn. To his hat salute and amiable
smile Polly replied with a fierce averting of the look. Her friend
nodded cheerfully, and they passed. Two minutes after he found Miss
Waghor