And back again slide Kennaston’s chambers into their original depravity of dirt and dreariness; and down goes the charwoman to her pipe; and Lady Peggy on the wooden chair, Chockey on the box, spread their fingers to the reluctant warmth and are silent; while the clock ticks on the mantel-shelf; while the slit of blue that peers in at the window, grays; while the noises that are all new to these two, come rasping, roaring, shouting up to them through the broken pane—the dizzying, multitudinous, incoherent surge of London town, as it first smites ears not yet wonted to its fascination or its meaning—merely lonely, forlorn, dispirited new-comers who have not yet learned the passion and the melody that lie hidden in its Babel. The waiting-woman is the first to move; with the homely excellent instincts of her class, she rises, and, after a slow glance around the place, falls “a-reddin’ of it up” as she mentally designated her attempt. She seized the stumpy broom from its corner and swept the floor, brushed the maze of cobwebs from ceiling and walls; beat the mats; wiped the stools and table, the broad window-sills and the shelves; shook out the dingy, ink-stained cloth; straightened the litter of books and papers, quills and horns; and finally went a-peering into the cupboards. A grimy coffee-pot and a well-matching kettle were fished out and rubbed; the kettle filled with water from the tubfull on the landing and straightway hung upon the crane; plates and cups and saucers and spoons brought forth; a paper of coffee, a jug of milk and a bottle of sugar discovered, and presently Chockey handed her mistress a cup of steaming mocha and modestly poured one for herself. “Oh, Chock!” cries Lady Peggy, setting down the empty cup. “What a fool was I to come! What am I, forsooth, in all this great desert but a grain of sand! And Percy, not,” Lady Peggy stamps her muddy red-heeled shoe fiercely, “a-dyin’ for me in the least! and my twin a-livin’ in such a hole! wherever does he sleep, Chock?” Surveying the barn-like apartment in disgust and dismay, her gaze finally arrested by a ladder slanting in the darkest corner and reaching up to an opening in the ceiling. “Up there, I dare be sworn! Lud! If this ’tis to be an author,” flouts Peggy, “God ha’ mercy on ’em! I tell you what, Chock. I’ll tarry a little, have a word with Kennaston; then we’ll back, girl, whence we came, quick; I’ll send word to Sir Robin McTart, and then let weddin’-bells ring as soon as ever he sees fit. No more o’ love for me, Chock. I’m done with it forever in this world; I’ll take marriage instead!” Chockey shakes her head ruefully as her mistress, more to emphasize her latest resolve than from any other motive, flings wide open the cracked doors of the clothes-press next the chimney-piece and gives a tempestuous shake-out to the garments a-hanging on the pegs.