ight,
Does expectation load the wing of time!"

When, after a few minutes, I got outside the church, she had
disappeared, although I had endeavoured to follow as close as I could on
her footsteps, without, of course, appearing to be intrusively watching
her.

I had managed too cleverly. She was gone. I had been so long, to my
great vexation, painfully pacing after the slowly-moving, out-shuffling
mass of ex-worshippers--dexterously essaying the while to avoid treading
on the trailing trains of the ladies, or incurring the anathemas, "not
loud, but deep," of gouty old gentlemen with tender feet, which they
_would_ put in one's way--that, on my succeeding at length in arriving
at the outer porch, and being enabled to don my hat once more, there was
not a single trace of either her mother or herself to be seen anywhere
in sight.

Here was a disappointment! While getting-out, I had made up my mind to
track them home, and find out where they lived; and now, they might be
beyond my ken for ever.

I had noted them both so keenly, as to their appearance and the manner
in which each was dressed, for, in spite of mother and daughter being
alike "in mourning," there were still distinctive features in their
toilets, that I could not have failed to distinguish them from the rest
of the congregation.

But now, my plans were entirely overthrown. What should I do in the
emergency? Stop, there was Horner; I would ask him if he had seen them.
There, dressed a merveille and with his inseparable eye-glass stuck
askew in the corner of his left eye, he stood listlessly criticising the
people as they came forth from prayer, in his usual impertinently-
inoffensive way. He was just as likely as not to have seen them, and
could naturally give me the information I sought about the direction in
which they had gone.

"Jack Horner," as he was familiarly styled by those having the honour of
his acquaintance, was a clerk in Downing Street languishing on a
hundred-and-fifty pounds per annum, which paltry income he received from
an ungrateful country in consideration of his valuable services on
behalf of the state. How he contrived merely to dress himself and
follow the ever-changing fashions on that sum, paid quarterly though it
was, appeared a puzzle to many; but he did, and well, too. It was
currently believed, besides, by his congeners, that he never got into
debt, happy fellow that he was! notwithstanding that, in addition to his