"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said, suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore--she was young herself once, I daresay!" "Drive on, please!--drive on!" "I'm driving my hardest, my child--cutting off all the corners--that's only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child--soon be home now. They won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once 'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal--that's on'y another kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now--don't cry any more--I hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!" And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street. At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street; she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door, muffled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her. "Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where _have_ you been?--what's the matter?" "Nothing much--don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?" "I overslept myself--oh! dear, dear, dear!--and just got up in a fright--that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!--I found the shop all dark, and just let him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are--oh! where _have_ you been?" "I'l tell you presently--let me think a bit--I'm not well, Ann." "You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to you? You came back in a cab--you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your mind, perhaps--for you always was a strange gal, and like nobody else, wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?" "No, no--_not for the world_! Go down-stairs and make haste with the coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped Mattie, "but take the shutters down."