They were standing under the shade of a tree in the lane behind Margaret’s home, and none saw or heard but the birds. The girl hesitated for a few seconds. It was no use to try to persuade herself that she did not care for him, for she knew better. He was searching her face with eager eyes, and she dared not meet his passionate gaze. She had given him love for love all along, and it was this that made it impossible for her to care for those who in his absence had sought her hand. Ah! yes, she loved him, and because she did his happiness should be dearer to her than her own. Oh! if she could believe that it would be really best for him, so that she might give him the answer he wanted, and which was throbbing in her heart and trembling on her lips! Might she? Dare she? True love is always humble, and there were strong reasons why Margaret’s should be especially so; and yet—— “Margaret, my darling, you do care for me!” he said, and he drew her gently toward him. “Care for you? Oh, John, John!” It was no use; love is stronger than anything. She yielded herself for a moment to his arms, and he took his first sweet kiss of love. CHAPTER X. IN PARADISE. Who is responsible for the naming of places? Paradises and Edens are plentiful in London, if there is anything in names: but some of them have surely received their cognomens in bitter irony. Near Mr. Knight’s premises was a court which was called Nightingale Lane, and another known as Wild Rose Court, the houses in which were, most of them, a disgrace to civilisation. But there was another, containing about seventy dwellings, which rejoiced in the name of Paradise Grove. Away at the church, the sound of whose bells came in a sort of muffled music, they used sometimes to sing about Paradise in the anthem— O Paradise! O Paradise! Who doth not crave for rest? Who would not seek the happy land Where they that love are blest? But this Paradise was hot and close and dreadfully dirty. At the open windows of the little houses men sat in ragged shirts and trousers, and worked off and on every day but Monday. There was a smell of dirt everywhere, and the children, escaping from the vigilance of the School Board officer, lay about in the dusty road until they looked like heaps of dust themselves. As for the language heard in Paradise, it was astonishingly bad. The men could scarcely utter a sentence without bringing in some oaths. The children, even when they meant to say good-natured things to each other, used the foulest of our language; and, worst of all, the girls raised yells of laughter by their filthy conversation. There was not a tree in Paradise Grove, nor a flower of any kind, but weeds grew there, and ill thoughts and utter misery. Were there no churches or chapels or missions near?