The room in which this interview took place had a sordid and miserable look. Rotten, and covered with a thick coat of dirt, the boards of the floor presented a very insecure footing; the bare walls were scored all over with grotesque designs, the chief of which represented the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar. The rest were hieroglyphic characters, executed in red chalk and charcoal. The ceiling had, in many places, given way; the laths had been removed; and, where any plaster remained, it was either mapped and blistered with damps, or festooned with dusty cobwebs. Over an old crazy bedstead was thrown a squalid, patchwork counterpane; and upon the counterpane lay a black hood and scarf, a pair of bodice of the cumbrous form in vogue at the beginning of the last century, and some other articles of female attire. On a small shelf near the foot of the bed stood a couple of empty phials, a cracked ewer and basin, a brown jug without a handle, a small tin coffee-pot without a spout, a saucer of rouge, a fragment of looking-glass, and a flask, labelled “_Rosa Solis_.” Broken pipes littered the floor, if that can be said to be littered, which, in the first instance, was a mass of squalor and filth. Over the chimney-piece was pasted a handbill, purporting to be “_The last Dying Speech and Confession of_ TOM SHEPPARD, _the Notorious Housebreaker, who suffered at Tyburn on the 25th of February, 1703._” This placard was adorned with a rude wood-cut, representing the unhappy malefactor at the place of execution. On one side of the handbill a print of the reigning sovereign, Anne, had been pinned over the portrait of William the Third, whose aquiline nose, keen eyes, and luxuriant wig, were just visible above the diadem of the queen. On the other a wretched engraving of the Chevalier de Saint George, or, as he was styled in the label attached to the portrait, James the Third, raised a suspicion that the inmate of the house was not altogether free from some tincture of Jacobitism. Beneath these prints, a cluster of hobnails, driven into the wall, formed certain letters, which, if properly deciphered, produced the words, “_Paul Groves, cobler;_” and under the name, traced in charcoal, appeared the following record of the poor fellow's fate, “_Hung himsel' in this rum for luv off licker;_” accompanied by a graphic sketch of the unhappy suicide dangling from a beam. A farthing candle, stuck in a bottle neck, shed its feeble light upon the table, which, owing to the provident kindness of Mr. Wood, was much better furnished with eatables than might have been expected, and boasted a loaf, a knuckle of ham, a meat-pie, and a flask of wine. “You've but a sorry lodging, Mrs. Sheppard,” said Wood, glancing round the chamber, as he expanded his palms before the scanty flame. “It's wretched enough, indeed, Sir,” rejoined the widow; “but, poor as it is, it's better than the cold stones and open streets.”