so she was in the room, flushed, panting, hopeful.

A long, long time must have passed since that room had been swept. Flue
and dust had accumulated till they formed a soft covering of nearly a
quarter of an inch thick. A fusty, musty smell was in the room, in the
air of the staircase, everywhere.

She feared that only the upper part of the house was uninhabited but it
was not so. The place was terribly neglected and dilapidated. Holes were
in the walls, some of the twisted oak stair-rails had been torn away,
patches of the ceiling had fallen. But Lavinia hardly noticed anything
as she flew down the stairs. The lock could not be opened from the
outside without the key, but inside the handle had but to be pushed back
and she was in the street. She pulled her hood well over her head and
hastened towards Ludgate Hill. It was not the nearest route to Grub
Street which she knew was somewhere near Moorfields, but she dared not
pass her mother's house.

Lavinia knew more about London west of St. Paul's than she did east of
it, and she had to ask her way. Grub Street she found was outside the
city wall, many fragments of which were then standing, and she had to
pass through the Cripples Gate before she reached the squalid quarter
bordering Moor Fields westward, where distressed poets, scurrilous
pamphleteers, booksellers' hacks and literary ne'er-do-wells dragged out
an uncertain existence.

Lavinia found Fletcher's Court to be a narrow passage with old houses
dating from Elizabethan times, whose projecting storeys were so close
together that at the top floor one could jump across to the opposite
side without much difficulty. With beating heart she entered the house,