"I gave it to his care as soon as I went down this morning; but----" "But what?" "The gentleman has been here, and David was ordered to refuse him admittance. I must take your message; there's the bell ringing again." Griselda stood where Graves left her, her hands clasped together, and exclaimed: "What shall I do?--wait till he writes? He will surely write! Oh, that I had someone to consult! Shall I leave the house?--shall I go to Mrs. Travers? No; I would not force myself on her--or anyone. I must wait. Surely my poor little rhymes were prophetic! Waiting and watching----" Again Graves appeared with a tray, on which was Griselda's dinner. A little three-cornered note lay on the napkin. Griselda snatched it up, and read, in Lady Betty's thin, straggling, pointed handwriting: "Do not atempt to shew your face, miss, till you have made a propar apollgey, and have declared your readynes to meet the gentleman who has done you the honour of adressing you. "B. L." Lady Betty's spelling was, to say the least of it, eccentric; and Griselda smiled as she crumpled up the note and tossed it into the fire. "Very well, I am a prisoner then till my true knight comes to set me free. Make my compliments to her ladyship, and say, Graves, that I am obedient to her orders, and have no intention of showing my face." "My dear," Graves said, "pray to the Lord to help you; you will need His help." "What do you mean? Speak out, Graves." But again Graves left the room, murmuring to herself: "I have not the heart to tell her, yet she must surely know; she must be told." The long, slow hours passed, and twilight deepened early, for the sky only showed a lurid glow in the west for a few minutes at sunset, and then the rain and mist swept over the city, and nothing was to be seen from the window but the dim light of an oil-lamp here and there, and the flare of the link-boys' torches as they passed in attendance on chairs, or lighted pedestrians across the road for a fee of a halfpenny. At the accustomed hour Lady Betty set off to the Assembly Room, and the house being quiet, Griselda came out of her room. David was in attendance with his mistress, and only the woman who let the house and cooked for the family was at home with her daughter. Griselda heard her voice raised to reproach her daughter, who acted as servant to the establishment, and she caught the words: "Shut the door, Sarah Anne! Send the young rascal away!--a little thief, no doubt!" Griselda ran downstairs, impelled by some hidden instinct, and feeling sure that the messenger came from Crown Alley. The door was partially open, and Sarah Anne was evidently trying to shut it against an effort to keep it open. Then Griselda heard a voice pleading--a musical boyish voice: "Let the young lady know I'm here; pray do." And now Graves came from the back of the house, and exclaimed, as Griselda was trying to admit the boy: