He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as fresh
as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season's end, a
trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She had
brought nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the forms
and the place to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker's, was obscure
and barely adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of disgust
which her lover's never showed as she responded with a "There?" of
surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp
question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she
had dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her
ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the
directness with which the girl managed to receive the accompanying
missive was the result of the concentration that had caused her to make
the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied by the production of it.
This concentration, in turn, may be described as the effect of the
apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, counted and
checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, had he
been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see him
often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence might just
then happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as
ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it.

But, gracious, how handsome was her ladyship, and what an added price it
gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed
originally from such a source! The girl looked straight through the cage
at the eyes and lips that must so often have been so near as own--looked
at them with a strange passion that for an instant had the result of
filling out some of the gaps, supplying the missing answers, in his
correspondence. Then as she made out that the features she thus scanned
and associated were totally unaware of it, that they glowed only with the