Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey, when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic’s wife, who went up to the roadside. “I worked once for that lady,” said the man with a tone of feeling; “and when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an angel of charity and kindness!” Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden manner in which the mechanic’s helpmate turned her head to the spot in which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once more he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural shame--a fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he muttered an abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance at the carriage, walked away. Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him, breathless. “Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!” she said, with more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused an instant, and again strode on-- “It must be some mistake,” he said, hurriedly: “I have no right to expect such an honour.” He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished from Madame de Merville’s eyes, before the woman regained the carriage. But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented itself before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and gentle fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day, memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or glide--on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when Youth begins to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of desire and love. In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded behind, and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,--