reference, she being at variance, as she told me, with her relations in the country.” “She came to you at once, then?” “Yes, she stayed with me there and then, not caring to go back to London, the strangeness of which frightened her, she said; and she had no luggage, except a little bit of a carpet-bag, full of things, which she sent for next day; and then by-and-by the truth came out, that she’d run away from home. But she had a couple of sovereigns, and she went out and bought herself a few more things, and made herself as neat and comfortable as she could. She didn’t make much secret of how she’d left her home, poor girl. Her father had wanted her to marry against her own wishes, she said, and, in her fear of him, she had run away.” “Poor girl! poor girl!” “Well, sir,” sighed Mrs. Burfield, “we got on very comfortable for some months. I never met a young person more kind or more willing. The children took to her as if she’d been their own sister, and she was altogether the steadiest, most industrious young person. Things had gone pretty comfortable with me that season; and in the autumn, quite late, going on for November, when people don’t expect to see a single lodger in all Coltonslough, what should I hear, one afternoon, but the wheels of a fly, and a tremendous double knock at my door; and who should I see when I opened it, but a tall, handsome-looking gentleman, who walked straight into my parlour, and took the rooms off-hand, and without so much as inquiring what the terms would be, which, considering the haggling and beating down I’d been accustomed to in the very best part of the season, seemed almost like a dream.” Mrs. Burfield had warmed with her subject, and had refrained for some time from the relief of a sigh; but she paused now to indulge herself in a very heavy one, and then, after a general disquisition upon the sorrows of a lodging-house keeper, went on,--