her what she required--and Heaven knows, sovereigns were scarce
enough with me then--thankfully, and felt sincerely obliged to her
for making herself my debtor. Miss Blake did sometimes ruffle one's
feathers most confoundedly, and yet I knew it would have grieved me
had we parted in enmity.

Sometimes, now, when I look upon her quiet and utterly respectable old
age--when I contemplate her pathetic grey hair and conventional lace
cap--when I view her clothed like other people and in her right mind, I
am very glad indeed to remember I had no second thought about that
sovereign, but gave it to her--with all the veins of my heart, as she
would have emphasised the proceeding.

"Though you have no name to speak of," observed Miss Blake as she
pocketed the coin, "I think there must be some sort of blood in you. I
knew Pattersons once who were connected by marriage with a great duke in
the west of Ireland. Can you say if by chance you can trace relationship
to any of them?"

"I can say most certainly not, Miss Blake," I replied. "We are
Pattersons of nowhere and relations of no one."

"Well, well," remarked the lady, pityingly, "you can't help that, poor
lad. And if you attend to your duties, you may yet be a rich City
alderman."

With which comfort she left me, and wended her homeward way through St.
Martin's Lane and the Seven Dials.