And now, once more out in dreary Gower Street, and even as I went along some one was being taken towards the hospital in a cab, but I had not the heart then to look within. CHAPTER NINETEEN. MY OLD BOOKSELLER. It was some six months after, that, finding myself in the neighbourhood, I made a point of going down the North London road so as to call on the old couple, who had had charge of the house. But the substantial and eligible residence had been let, while half a dozen rain soaked carcases had been plastered up; and seeing a board with an attractive notice I concluded that they would be there and I was right: they were in charge of a wretchedly damp place. They smiled a welcome to me as they answered the door together, and, learning that I was not house-seeking but a visitor, I was soon sitting chatting to them, and found that they were only too willing to communicate their affairs to me, though the old lady was suffering from a touch of pleurisy, and she was very quiet. That visit was one of several, and during one of them the old man told me how he had been a bookseller, but had failed. Then he had gone into the second-hand book trade, and done pretty well for a time, but at last he had failed over that. "He used to give too good prices for the old books," said the old lady, smiling. "Well, yes, I was a bit too easy," he said. "It was very pleasant though, and I liked it, and some of the happiest days of my life were spent in my dusty shop." "Yes," said the old lady with a sigh, "we were happy enough there, but you used to give too much for the old books." "Ah! perhaps so," said the old man, "but look at the advantages we enjoyed of a constantly changing, ebbing and flowing library, filled with works of all dates, from the shabby, fingered copy of a year old, right back to black-letter times, and even beautifully clear illuminated manuscript works, perfect marvels of neatness and labour. "Then, too, we had a wonderful chance of studying human nature--not only from the buying side like your new booksellers, but from the selling side; and let me tell you that the purchasers of our books were not your light, flippant people who buy a volume for its gilt back and showy binding, but those who want books for their contents. Why it's a study alone to sit watching the books outside, so as to be on the alert for those bibliomaniacs who take copies off the outer stall and forget to replace them. It's a perfect study, I assure you, to see people stop and take up first one and then another volume, till they happen on something which takes their interest, and then to see the play of their countenances, as forgetful of the lapse of time, they read on and on till the book is either laid down with a sigh, or purchased--more often the former than the latter.