"DEAR PHILIP HAMLYN,--The other day, when calling here, you spoke of some infallible prescription to cure gout that had been given you. I've symptoms of it flying about me--and be hanged to it! Bring it to me yourself to-morrow; I want to see you. _I suppose there was no mistake in the report that that ship did go down?_--and that none of the passengers were saved from it? "Truly yours, "RICHARD PRATT." "What can he possibly mean?" muttered Philip Hamlyn. But there was no one to answer the question, and he sat buried in thought, trying to answer it himself. Starting up from the useless task, he looked in his desk, found the infallible prescription, and then snatched his watch from his pocket. "Too late," he decided impatiently; "Pratt would be gone to bed. He goes at all kinds of unearthly hours when out of sorts." So he went upstairs to his wife again, the prescription displayed in his hand. Morning came, bringing the daily routine of duties in its train. Mrs. Hamlyn had made an engagement to go with some friends to Blackheath, to take luncheon with a lady living there. It was damp and raw in the early portion of the day, but promised to be clear later on. "And then my little darling can go out to play again," she said, hugging the child to her. "In the afternoon, nurse; it will be drier then; it is really too damp this morning." Parting from him with fifty kisses, she went down to her comfortable and handsome carriage, her husband placing her in. "I wish you were coming with me, Philip! But, you see, it is only ladies to-day. Six of us." Philip Hamlyn laughed. "I don't wish it at all," he answered; "they would be fighting for me. Besides, I must take old Pratt his prescription. Only picture his storm of anger if I did not." Mrs. Hamlyn was not back until just before dinner: her husband, she heard, had been out all day, and was not yet in. Waiting for him in the drawing-room listlessly enough, she walked to the window to look out. And there she saw with a sort of shock the same woman standing in the same place as the previous evening. Not once all day long had she thought of her. "This is a strange thing!" she exclaimed. "I am _sure_ it is this house that she is watching." On the impulse of the moment she rang the bell and called the man who answered it to the window. He was a faithful, attached servant, had lived with them ever since they were married, and previously to that in Mr. Hamlyn's family in the West Indies. "Japhet," said his mistress, "do you see that woman opposite? Do you know why she stands there?" Japhet's answer told nothing. They had all seen her downstairs, yesterday evening as well as this, and wondered what she could be watching the house for. "She is not waiting for any of the servants, then; not an acquaintance of theirs?" "No, ma'am, that I'm sure she's not. She is a stranger to us all."