Maria Walker was usually allowed to be the beauty of one of the small towns round London in the direction of Greenwich, of which ancient place she was a native. Her father had originally practiced as a physician in that place, but circumstances had caused his removal to another locality, which promised more profitable returns. The house they occupied was an ancient red brick mansion in the centre of the town, with a large bow-window, always celebrated for its geraniums, myrtles, and roses that, with a couple of small orange-trees, were the admiration of the neighborhood. Not that Thomas Walker, Esq. had any horticultural tastes--on the contrary, he was very severe on our sex for devoting their minds to such trifles as music, flowers, and fancy work; but then blue-eyed Maria Walker differed with him in opinion, and plainly told him so--saucy, pert girl, as even I thought her, though several years my senior. Not that she neglected any more serious duties for those lighter amusements; the poorer patients of her father ever found in her a friend. Mr. Walker strongly objected to giving any thing away, it was a bad example, he said, and people never valued what they got for nothing; but many was the box of pills and vial of medicine which Maria smuggled under her father's very nose, to poor people who could not afford to pay; of course he knew nothing about it, good, easy man, though it would have puzzled a philosopher to have told how the girl could have prepared them. She was an active member, too, of a charitable coal club, made flannel for the poor, and even distributed tracts upon occasion. When this was done, then she would turn to her pleasures, which were her little world. She was twenty, and I was not sixteen at the time of which I speak, but yet we were the best friends in the world. I used to go and sit in the bow-window; while she would play the piano for hours together, I had some fancy-work on my lap; but my chief amusement was to watch the passers-by. I don't think that I am changed by half-a-dozen more years of experience, for I still like a lively street, and dislike nothing more than a look out upon a square French court in this great city of Paris, where houses are more like prisons than pleasant residences. But to return to my bow-window. In front of the house of the Walkers, had been, a few years before, an open space, but which now, thanks to the rapid march of improvement, was being changed into a row of very good houses. There were a dozen of them, and they were dignified with the name of Beauchamp Terrace. They were, about the time I speak of, all to let; the last finishing touch had been put to them, the railings had been painted, the rubbish all removed, and they wanted nothing, save furniture and human beings to make them assume a civilized and respectable appearance. I called one morning on Maria Walker, her father was out, she had been playing the piano till she was tired, so we sat down in the bow-window and talked.