As, in his present state of feeling, there was nothing which in his heart Colin so much desired as an opportunity of obliging his second-floor neighbour, Miss Wintlebury, it luckily happened that in the course of a very short time she failed not to afford him various opportunities of so doing, having in all probability been taught her cue by the brother. After some trifling requests, such as borrowing tea, &c., she at last ventured, though very reluctantly indeed, to ask the loan, just for three days, of four pounds fifteen, if he _could_ possibly do her that great obligation, in order to satisfy the impudent demands of the apothecary, the tea-dealer, the baker, and the butcher, who severally and respectively had peremptorily cut off the supplies. All these friendly applications Colin responded to with unparalleled promptitude, although the last one so very materially enlarged the hollow of his purse, that he began to marvel how he himself should contrive to clear his way as far as to the end of the next fortnight. This position of affairs somewhat aroused him from the idle day-dream in which he had been indulging. It was time, high time, that he set about doing something to earn a subsistence; for, besides the amount he had thus expended in supplying the wants of others, he had also lessened his stock very rapidly by attending nightly at the concert-room to hear his mistress's voice, which he thought the finest in the world, and to rejoice over the popular applause with which she there seldom failed to be greeted. For, singular as it may appear, he had never yet met with her in their own house, nor exchanged a single word with her in private upon any occasion whatever. His personal introduction yet remained to be made.