"I hope not. If you are--I like trouble. I shall make a bright light of you in good time!" Sidney thought of the sermons in store for him, but hazarded no comment. Beyond them, and before all, was the preacher's daughter--the woman who understood him, and who had even rendered blindness endurable. "You were speaking a short while since of going abroad. Have you changed your mind?" "They changed theirs at the chapel. Bless you! they thought they could pitch upon a man so much more suitable! You hear that--so much more suitable!" "Ah!--a good joke." "I don't see where the joke lies," he said quickly. "I beg pardon. No, not exactly a joke--was it?" "I should say not." "Well--and this business--what is it to be?" "I fancy the old idea of a bookseller and stationer's. I can bring a little connection from our chapel together--and there's your friends at the bank." "No--don't build on them--I have done with them." "Ah! I had forgotten. But we must not bear enmity in our hearts against our fellow-men." "True--and this business--where is it to be?" "We'll look out, Mattie and I, at once." "Nothing settled yet, then?" said Sidney, with a sigh, who was anxious to be stirring in life once more. "Nothing yet, of course. I did not know whether you would approve of the scheme. Whether Mattie and I would be exactly fitting company for you." "Is that satire?" "My dear sir, I never said a satirical thing in my life." "The best of company, then--for you and Mattie are the only friends left me, save that honest girl down-stairs." "Ah! Ann Packet--we must not forget her, or we shall have Mattie scolding us." "I asked if it were satire, because you are doing me a great service, and saving me from much anxiety. I have been thinking lately that it would be better for me to find my way into some asylum or other, and settle down there apart from the busy world without. You come forward to save me from the streets I have been fearing." "As Mattie was saved," said Mr. Gray, solemnly; "remember that!" Mr. Gray shortly afterwards took his leave. The same night he communicated the details of his scheme to his daughter; he could easily read in her face that it was a plan that had her full concurrence. Sidney at home again--Sidney to take care of, and screen from all those ills to which his position was liable! In a short while a shop in the suburbs of London--not a great distance from Peckham Rye--was found to let. It stood in a new neighbourhood, with houses rising round it at every turn. A building mania had set in that direction, and a populous district was springing up there. "I have always heard that to pitch one's camp in a new neighbourhood, if one has the patience to wait, will always succeed. We three have patience, and I think we'll try it." This was said to Mattie, after she and her father had inspected the premises, and were walking by cross roads towards Camberwell, to gladden Sidney with the latest news.