All observant (or is it only unobservant?) persons must surely have remarked that children seem to grow up suddenly in a night like Jack’s bean-stalk. The child that only yesterday we dandled in our arms, to-day runs about and talks with the best of us, and to-morrow he will be married, and the day after to-morrow his children in their turn will be beginning the whole curious magic mushroom-growth over again for another generation! So those who only in the last page saw Caroline Shepley in long clothes will perhaps not be altogether surprised to recognise her on this page as a child of six years, trotting along the pavements under the charge of a very good-looking young nurse-maid. Seven years had not changed the ambitions of Mrs. Shepley; but they had been transferred during that period, and now she was no longer ambitious for herself, but for her beautiful little daughter Caroline. ‘Carrie must have a maid of her own, like other gentlefolk’s children,’ she had said, and though her husband laughed at the idea as pretentious nonsense, he made no further objections, and Mrs. Shepley engaged the services of a young woman, Patty Blount, whose duty it became to walk out daily with little Caroline, as is the custom in all well-regulated families. Patty, though not eminently conscientious in other matters, performed this duty with the most praiseworthy regularity. No sooner had the hall-clock chimed eleven than this punctual young person issued from the door of the little house in Jermyn Street leading Caroline by the hand. Their walks had a curious sameness, tending as they almost invariably did in the direction of St. James’ Square; and Carrie, a conversational little person, noticed that about the hour of their walk Patty was curiously absent-minded. She was always looking round her, and sometimes would even fairly stand still, with an air of expectation as if she were waiting for some one. At last one morning as they sauntered through the Square, the door of one of the houses opened, and a young gentleman, Carrie’s senior by some four years, came down the steps attended by a tall man-servant wearing prune liveries. Carrie, who was feeling very dull at that moment, poor child, plucked her careless companion by the skirt. ‘See, Patty,’ she whispered; ‘there is a boy who must be nearly my own age.’ Patty was not absent-minded now. She seemed to have suddenly wakened up; and giving Carrie that curious dragging shake which seems an hereditary action in the nurse-maid class, she turned her head pointedly in the opposite direction from the approaching figures, and hurried Carrie along the Square at a great pace. ‘You should think shame, Miss Carrie, to be a-noticin’ of strangers in the streets,’ she said. They passed the boy and the tall footman as she spoke, and turned the corner of the Square. A moment later Carrie heard a voice behind them address Patty, and turning round she beheld the tall footman walking alongside.