The girl tried to throw the card back, and succeeded in projecting it, twice over, a couple of feet, to come fluttering down again, when she caught it, and stood shaving and scraping the dirt off her cheek with its edge, evidently finding it more grateful than the sandpaper of the match-box. "There! never mind," said Richard. "Go and tell her Mr Norwood is here." "Mr Norwood?" said the girl. "Yes, Mr Norwood," exclaimed Richard, angrily; and the girl disappeared, Richard employing himself the while in peering furtively about for observers. He had turned his back to the area, and was wondering whether the potman, coming down the street, with what appeared to be a gigantic bunch of pewter grapes upon his back, was intent upon his own affairs or watching him, when he started, for a shrill "I say!" ascended from the area, and looking round, he found the diminutive maid presenting him with his card, which was stuck amongst the hairs of a long broom, whose handle enabled the child to elevate the piece of pasteboard to within its owner's reach. "I thought I could do it," said the girl, laughing. "Go--and--tell--your--mistress--Mister--Norwood--wants--her," hissed Richard Pellet, savagely; as, with one action, he seized the card, and shook his fist at the girl. "Hadn't you better call again," said the imp, "and leave the paper? She never pays fust time, and you ain't been before." "Go--and--" Richard Pellet got no further; for, alarmed at his fierce tones, his auditor vanished as he began; there was a scuffle and a banging door, and he was left alone, pending the delivery of his message. Another five minutes elapsed, when the door-chain was taken down, the key laboriously turned, and Richard Pellet was admitted by the dirty-faced girl, and shown into the parlour, where, staring the whole time, the child polished a chair for him with her apron, her nose upon her arm; and then, wondering why the black-coated important visitor had no rate-books sticking out of his pocket, she announced that "Missus" would be down directly. Fuming and frowning, Richard Pellet seated himself upon the rubbed chair; but only to bound from it at the end of a minute, in a state of nervous perturbation, caused by some urchin suddenly and furiously rattling his hoop-stick along the area railings. But Richard Pellet was somewhat unstrung; he had been drinking during the night of wakefulness more than was good for him, to allay the annoyance and harass to which he had been subjected, and now the potent spirit was reminding him of the transgression. But as he once more seated himself, he determined, upon one thing, and that was, should he obtain a clue by whose means he could trace and overtake Ellen, he would not leave her again until he had seen her safely back with Mrs Walls.