This dark suspicion recommended itself to her mind, and she readily gave it admittance. It is to be feared that Mrs. Preedy's experiences had not led her to a charitable opinion of maids-of-all-work. Becky, as Mrs. Preedy called her servant, was a new girl, and had been in her service for nearly a fortnight. Mrs. Preedy had been agreeably disappointed in the girl, whom she did not expect to stay in the house a week. Since the murder at No. 119, she had had eight different servants, not one of whom stayed for longer than a few days--two had run away on the second day, declaring that the ghost of the murdered man had appeared to them on the first night, and that they wouldn't sleep another in such a place for "untold gold." But Becky remained. "Is there anything goin' on atween 'im and Becky?" was Mrs. Preedy's thought, as she looked at the clock. Richard Manx's eyes followed hers. "It is--a--what you call wrong," he muttered. "Very wrong," said Mrs. Preedy, aloud, under the impression that he had unwittingly answered her thought, "and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You may do what you like in your own country, but I don't allow such goings on in my 'ouse." "I was--a--thinking of your watch-clock," said Richard Manx. "It is not--a--right. Five, ten, fifteen minutes are past, and I counted twelve by the church bells. Midnight, that is it--twelve of the clock." "It's time for all decent people to be abed and asleep," remarked Mrs. Preedy. "In bed--ah!--but in sleep--that is not the same thing. _You_ are not so." "I've got my business to look after," retorted Mrs. Preedy. "I suppose you 'aven't come to pay your rent?" "To pay? Ah, money! It is what you call it, tight. No, I have not come money to pay." "And 'ow am I to pay _my_ rent, I should like to know, if you don't pay yours? Can you tell me that, young man?" "I cannot--a--tell you. I am not a weezard." Although Mrs. Preedy had fully regained her courage she could not think of a fitting rejoinder to this remark; so for a moment she held her tongue. She had occupied her house for thirty years, living, until a short time since, in tolerable comfort upon the difference between the rent she received from her lodgers and the rent she paid to the agent of the estate upon which Great Porter Square was situated. It was a great and wealthy estate. Mrs. Preedy had never seen her aristocratic landlord, who owned not only Great Porter Square but a hundred squares and streets in the vicinity, in addition to lovely tracts of woodland and grand mansions in the country. The income of this to-be-envied lord was said to be a sovereign a minute. London, in whose cellars and garrets hundreds of poor wretches yearly die of starvation, contains many such princes.