“Poor Alford!” murmured the editor, somewhat touched by the earnestness of this appeal. “So he has allowed his daughter to go on the stage, and cherishes the fond delusion that she must needs be a Siddons or an O’Neill, because she has a childish fancy for gas-lamps and spangled petticoats. Yes, I remember the little girl--an angular chit in brown holland; a nice little girl, I think she was, with pretty, dreamy, blue eyes, and shy, childish ways, but an embryo blue-stocking, nevertheless. I have a faint recollection of her playing at Electra with the tea-pot one night, when she did not know that Waldon and I were looking at her. Well, I’ll do all I can. The West-end managers are _tant soit peu difficile_ now-a-days; but as the _Areopagus_ comes down rather savagely upon the modern drama and its professors now and then, they may strain a point to oblige me. I suppose the most friendly way of going to work would be to call on poor Alford.” When his morning’s work was over, Mr. Desmond took a hansom from the nearest stand, and rattled up to the topmost heights of Islington, where, after considerable difficulty and aggravating waste of time, the cabman found Paul’s Terrace, a shabby little row of newly built houses, on the road to Ball’s Pond. The tutor, whom Mr. Desmond remembered the occupant of a pretty cottage near Henley, must indeed have fallen upon evil fortunes. “Mr. Halford ’ave just stepped hout,” said a grimy-looking servant-girl who opened the door; “but he won’t be gone long, sir; which Miss Sent Halbans is in the parlour. P’r’aps you’d like to wait?” “Well, yes, I think I had better wait,” replied the editor, disinclined to sacrifice his afternoon without benefit to his old friend. The girl opened a door, and admitted Mr. Desmond into a very small parlour, powerfully perfumed with stale tobacco, and occupied by a young lady, who was standing by the window, with a little book in her hand. This must of course be the Miss St. Albans of whom the servant had spoken,--a visitor or hanger-on of the old tutor, perhaps. Laurence Desmond wondered how Mr. Alford came to burden himself with a visitor, and how the visitor came by so fine a name. Miss St. Albans was a fair-haired young lady, with a slight, girlish figure, and one of those faces which some people call “sweetly pretty,” and some only “interesting,”--a tender, winning countenance, with soft blue eyes and lovely mouth, but without the splendour of complexion and feature which attract universal admiration and secure immediate attention. Nor was this young lady’s appearance rendered striking by the art of milliner or mantua-maker. Upon her person, as upon the room she occupied, poverty had set its stamp. She wore a brown merino dress that had seen much service, and her head-dress was of the most unsophisticated order, consisting only of a small forest of curl-papers.