"Oh, no, miss! we have only to go down Newgate Street, and there you
are. It's a queer place, is Paternoster Row, not that I knows much
about it."

"A mighty bookish place," took up the other neighbor "they say they
are all bookworms that live there, and that they are as dry as bits of
parchment. I shouldn't say that a bright little miss like you had any
call to go near such a place."

Jasmine drew herself up, and her face became sunshiny once more.

"You would not think," she began, with an air of modest pride, "that I
belong to the booky and the parchmenty people, but I do. I am going
down the Row to inquire about one of my publications, perhaps I ought
to say my first, so I am anxious about it."

"Lor', who would have thought it!" exclaimed both the ladies, but they
instantly fell back and seemed to think it better to leave so
alarmedly learned a little girl alone. For the remainder of the ride
they talked across Jasmine about the price of onions, and where the
cheapest bacon was to be purchased, and they both breathed a sigh of
relief when she stepped out into the rain and they could once more
expand themselves in the space which she had occupied.

Meanwhile the forlorn little adventurer walked down the narrow path of
this celebrated Row. It was still raining heavily, and Jasmine's
umbrella had several rents in its canopy. Now that she was so close to
her destination she began to feel strangely nervous, and many fears
hitherto unknown beset her. Suppose, after all, _The Joy-bell_ which