Mr. Merrywhistle had no very distinct plan in his mind when he left Jimmy Virtue's shop to visit Blade-o'-Grass. Sincerely commiserating her condition, he wished to put her in the way to get an honest and respectable living, but was deeply perplexed as to the method by which she was to arrive at this desirable consummation. Some small assistance in money he might manage to give her; but in what way could it be applied? by what means was she to be lifted out of that slough into which she had been allowed to sink? And then he feared that she was past training. As Robert Truefit had said, Blade-o'-Grass was a woman now, with a grown-up person's passions and desires firmly rooted in her nature. And he feared something else, also. But he would see her and speak to her freely; good might come of it. The room she occupied was at the extreme end of Stoney-alley, and Mr. Merrywhistle was soon stumbling along dark passages and up flights of crippled stairs. When he reached the top of the house, as he thought, he tapped at a door, and receiving no answer, turned the handle, and entered. A very old woman, sitting before a very small fire, smiled and mumbled in reply to his questions; and he soon discovered that she was deaf and childish, and that he was in the wrong apartment. As he stumbled into the dark again, a woman, with a child in her' arms, came on to the landing with a candle in her hand, and showed Mr. Merrywhistle that there was still another flight of stairs to mount. Blade-o'-Grass lived up there, the woman said; first door on the right She didn't know if the girl was at home. And then she asked if he was a doctor. No, he answered, surprised at the question; he was not a doctor. The crazy stairs complained audibly as he trod them. He knocked at the first door on the right, and paused.