Having qualified myself for the calling I meant to adopt, the next thing was to take steps to hear of a situation; and to that end I put an advertisement in the _Times_, _Morning Post_, and _Guardian_, offering C. J.'s services to any lady going abroad who required a thoroughly efficient maid, capable of acting as courier if necessary. This notice bore fruit speedily in the shape of a note addressed to C. J., which I found awaiting me on my return from Mrs. Green's one afternoon, and which ran as follows:-- "2000 EATON SQUARE, _Thursday_. "Lady Mervyn writes in answer to C. J.'s advertisement, as she wishes to meet with a good travelling-maid. Lady Mervyn will be glad if C. J. will call at her house to-morrow evening at 5.30 _punctually_." How strange that my notice should happen to have been seen and answered by Lady Mervyn--a person between whom and myself there was a remote connection, and whom I had met years ago when I was a child! Would it be safe for me to enter her service? or should I be running too great a risk of recognition? No, I did not think I need be afraid. Kitty was the only one of the family who was at all likely to remember me, as I had been much more in her company than in theirs on the occasion of our previous meeting at Lugano. And that she had no recollection of me I had already proved at Sparkton Station; which forgetfulness on her part, by the by, I did not now feel the least bit inclined to resent, having quite got over the little soreness and irritation which it had caused me at the moment. Yes; I believed I should be as safe from discovery at Lady Mervyn's as anywhere else, and determined that I would take the situation. I was pleased with the idea of being under the same roof as Kitty Mervyn, on account of the opportunities which I should then have of observing this girl, whose character had interested me and excited my curiosity. And then, too, I might reasonably look forward to discovering some explanation of her having chosen to keep Captain Edward Norroy's photograph hidden away in her purse as she had done. A _carte-de-visite_ is ordinarily stuck into an album, and I wanted to know why she should have treated this particular _carte_ differently to that of any other acquaintance. These anticipations were checked by the sudden recollection that I was counting my chickens before they were hatched; that I had not yet got the place I was looking forward to; and that perhaps Lady Mervyn might not think fit to engage me after all. When did she say I was to go there? Looking again at the note I saw that it was dated the day before. Yesterday was Thursday, and to-day Friday, so I must wait upon her ladyship this very same afternoon, and had no time to lose in providing myself with that necessary article--a character.