Percival's high spirits at the thought that he had now won legitimate and
regular access to the house; still, it allowed him to call, it furnished
a fair excuse for a visit.

How long he was at his toilet that day, poor boy! How sedulously, with
comb and brush, he sought to smooth into straight precision that
luxuriant labyrinth of jetty curls, which had never cost him a thought
before! Gil Blas says that the toilet is a pleasure to the young, though
a labour to the old; Percival St. John's toilet was no pleasure to him
that anxious morning.

At last he tore himself, dissatisfied and desperate, from the glass,
caught his hat and his whip, threw himself on his horse, and rode, at
first very fast, and at last very slowly, to the old, decayed, shabby,
neglected house that lay hid, like the poverty of fallen pride, amidst
the trim villas and smart cottages of fair and flourishing Brompton.

The same servant who had opened the gate to Ardworth appeared to his
summons, and after eying him for some moments with a listless, stupid
stare, said: "You'll be after some mistake!" and turned away.

"Stop, stop!" cried Percival, trying to intrude himself through the gate;
but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no mistake at
all, my good lady. I have come to see Madame Dalibard, my--my relation!"

"Your relation!" and again the woman stared at Percival with a look
through the dull vacancy of which some distrust was dimly perceptible.
"Bide a bit there, and give us your name."

Percival gave his card to the servant with his sweetest and most