healings might prevent
all fear of any fatal ending to this later love. Lydia was very
unhappy as she went down stairs, though if another hero could be found
she was perhaps half conscious that the melancholy part of her present
love-story might be somewhat abridged.

The streets seemed changed to Percival as he went back to his work.
Their ugliness was as bare and as repulsive as ever, but he understood
now that the houses might hold human beings, his brothers and his
sisters, since some one roof among them sheltered Judith Lisle. Thus
he emerged from the alien swarm amid which he had walked in solitude
so many days. Above the dull and miry ways were the beauty of her
gray-blue eyes and the glory of her golden hair. He felt as if a white
dove had lighted on the town, yet he laughed at his own feelings; for
what did he know of her? He had seen her twice, and her father had
swindled him out of his money.

Never had his work seemed so tedious, and never had he hurried so
quickly to Bellevue street as he did when it was over. The door of No.
13 stood open, and young Lisle stood on the threshold. There was no
mistaking him. His face had changed from the beautiful chorister type
of two or three years earlier, but Percival thought him handsomer than
ever. He ceased his soft whistling and held out his hand: "Thorne! At
last! I was looking out for you the other way."

Thorne could hardly find time to greet him before he questioned
eagerly, "You have really taken the rooms here?"

"Really and truly. What's wrong? Anything against the landlady?"

"No," said Percival. "She's honest enough, and fairly obliging, and
all the rest of it. But then your sister is not coming here to live
with you, as they told me? That was a mistake?"

"Not a bit of it. She's coming: in fact, she's here."

"In Bellevue street?" Percival looked up and down the dreary
thoroughfare. "But, Lisle, what a place to bring her to!"

"Beggars mustn't be choosers," said Bertie. "We are not exactly what
you would call rolling in riches just now. And Bellevue street happens
to be about midway between St. Sylvester's and Standon Square, so it
will suit us both."

"Standon Square?" Percival repeated.

"Yes. Oh, didn't I tell you? My mother came to school at Brenthill. It
was her old schoolmistress we remembered lived here when we had your
letter. So we wrote to her, and the old dear not only promised me some
pupils, but it is settled that Judith is to go an