In this manner Clara Kingscott went away, shaking the Sussex dust from her feet and came to London, The Poplars being left to its own solitude after Tom's departure, with the old dowager twice as cross and rancorous and grinding to her tenants as before. I believe she even missed the governess after a time, for now the old doctor hardly ever came, and she had no one to quarrel with; no one who would answer her back again that is, for "Garge" took all she gave him, as did the old women servant, and there is no fun in having the quarrelling all to oneself. It takes two to make a fair quarrel, but the poor old dowager had no one now but herself. She paid off, however, her deprivation on Mr Trump, writing long letters every day to him about the progress of the suit, and making the lawyer swear at old ladies in general and Mrs Hartshorne in particular, and curse the inventors of pen, ink, and paper, and Sir Rowland Hill for the penny post. The governess, when she arrived in London, took some comfortable apartments for herself; she could afford to wait awhile, for she had plenty of money besides her salary, which latter she had rigorously exacted from the dowager to the last penny, including a month's notice, for which she gave a receipt in full, and she could afford to look about and suit her own convenience as to her future plans. By a strange coincidence, she, after hunting about for a day or two, took lodgings in the very house where Markworth had formerly lived in Bloomsbury, and had the very same landlady, Mrs Martin, as hostess. That good lady being very fond of chat, like most landladies, and as "the parlours," as Miss Kingscott became called from taking these rooms, had no friends coming to see her, she would frequently drop in "of an evenink" to pass the time of day: also, like most landladies, Mrs Martin would recount all the deeds and doings of her former lodgers, in which narrative she did not fail to mention Mr Markworth, "The best gentleman as any lady ever had; so quiet and giving no trouble, and always paying his rent that regular as you might depend upon it like the Bank of England as ever was!" It was not surprising under these circumstances, therefore, that Miss Kingscott soon got a little further information about the gentleman around whom she was busily weaving her coils, and learnt in a very short time--just through passing curiosity, that's all, she was so much interested in what that good Mrs Martin had to tell of her lodgers--all about the habits of Markworth, and that "sister" of his he had brought up from the country, and how he had removed all his things, and gone off at last without a word of warning; although "I'll do him the justice to say he behaved as a perfect gentleman, that he did, and paid a month's rent in advance," said Mrs Martin, which capped what the governess had got out of the old dowager, and placed the lodging-house keeper and herself on a par.