“Then I shall be your guide,” she said with a smile. “I've been studying the map, and reading a book about that part of London, and have marked out a route for us to follow.” “All right, Connie, get ready as soon as you like, and we'll have a day of adventures in the East.” And as Constance had dressed herself with a view to the journey, she had only to put on her hat and gloves, and they started at once, taking an omnibus in the Uxbridge Road to Chancery Lane. From Fleet Street they went on to Whitechapel, where their travels in a strange region were to begin. Constance wished in the first place to get some idea of the extent of that vast district so strangely called East _End,_ as if it formed but a small part of the great city. The population and number of tenements, and of miles of streets, were mere rows of figures on a page, and no help to the mind. Only by seeing it all would she be able to form any conception of it: she saw a great deal of it in the course of the day from the tops of omnibuses, and travelled for hours in those long thoroughfares that seemed to stretch away into infinitude, so that one finds it hard to believe that nature lies beyond, and fields where flowers bloom, and last night's dew lies on the untrodden grass. Nor was she satisfied with only seeing it, or a part of it, in this hasty superficial way; at various points they left the thoroughfare to stroll about the streets, and in some of the streets they visited, which were better than those inhabited by the very poor, Constance entered several of the houses on the old pretext of seeking lodgings, and made many minute inquiries about the cost of living from the women she talked with. It was seven o'clock in the evening when they got home; and after dining Merton lit a cigar and stretched himself out on the sofa of their sitting-room to recover from his fatigue. His wife was also too tired to do anything, and settled herself near him in the easy-chair. “Well, Connie,” he said with a smile, “what is to be the outcome of the day's adventures? Of course you had an object in dragging one through that desert desolate.” “Yes, I had,” she answered with a glance at his face. “Can you guess it?” “Perhaps I can. But let me hear it. I shall be so sorry if I have to nip your scheme in the bud.” “I think, Merton, it would be a good plan for us to go and live there for a time. It is better to move about a little and see some of the things that are going on in this world of London. I am getting a little tired of the monotony here; besides, just now when we are so poor it would be a great advantage. I found out to-day that we can get better rooms than these for about half the sum we are paying. Provisions and everything we require are also much cheaper there.”