Although Mr. Desmond was accustomed to relate almost all the details of his existence for the amusement of Mrs. Jerningham, he had refrained from telling her his experiences at the Oxford Road Theatre, or his renewal of an old friendship with Tristram Alford. Experience was fast teaching him a reticence that was the next thing to hypocrisy. It would have been very pleasant to him to tell the lady of River Lawn the story of Lucy Alford’s trials and aspirations; but he had an ever-present terror of awakening that slumbering monster, always lurking in the deeps of Emily Jerningham’s mind. He knew that to speak of Lucy would bring upon him a sharp interrogation; and he shrunk from the idea of a possible scene which might arise out of the mention of that damsel’s name. He expected Mr. Alford to breakfast on the morning after that uncongenial evening at Hampton, and had taken care that a tempting meal should be prepared for the dweller on the heights of Ball’s Pond. He waited breakfast for more than an hour, and only gave his visitor up when his own engagements obliged him to drink his tea and eat his dry toast with business-like haste, while the kippered salmon and devilled kidneys remained neglected in their hot-water dishes on a stand by the fire. “I suppose poor old Tristram has forgotten our engagement,” he said to himself, as he began his morning’s work; “I should like to have seen him, in order to have some talk with him about that poor little girl’s prospects; and yet what good can I hope to achieve for her, if the father is a drunkard? Nothing else could have brought him so low: for he had an excellent position when I knew him twelve years ago. Even then Waldon and I suspected his attachment to the brandy-bottle. He was so fond of recommending brandy and cold water as the remedy for every disease common to mortality. And now it has come from brandy to gin--which indicates a decadence of a hundred per cent. in his social status. Poor girl! she is such a pretty, winning, childlike creature, and of that sympathetic nature which is so susceptible to all suffering.” Neither letter nor message of apology or explanation came from Mr. Alford during that day, but very late at night came a mysterious boy, with a damp and dirty-looking missive from the learned Tristram. Mr. Alford was one of those people whose letters usually arrive late at night; so Laurence was in nowise disconcerted when his man informed him that a boy had brought this damp epistle, and was waiting for an answer. “Has the letter come from Islington by hand?” asked Laurence, surprised that the needy tutor should have preferred to employ the expensive luxury of a messenger to the cheap convenience of a postage-stamp. The major-domo departed to question the boy, and returned to tell his master that the letter had not come from Islington, but from Whitecross Street.