The questioner was Watton. She sat in the servants' room near the window, against which the rain was pattering, some household sewing in her hand. Neal, who had entered to get a glass he wanted was rather taken with surprise, but he was not one to show it in his manner. "Did you never see it?" he asked. "I saw it in a picture once. I couldn't see it elseways; I've never been to London?" "It is a large space of land with houses round it and the cathedral in the middle," explained Neal, who seemed always ready to oblige his fellow-servants, especially Watton. "It's a thoroughfare, you know; the road from Ludgate Hill to Cheapside winds round on each side the cathedral, between it and the houses." "Is it very noisy?" "Pretty well for that. But the London people don't seem to care for noise. I expect they are so used to it that they don't hear it." "The houses round St. Paul's are warehouses, aren't they?" "Warehouses and shops. The shops are mostly on one side and the warehouses on the other." "Do you know a place called Cannon Street?" "I should think I do! It leads down from St. Paul's to King William Street. Why do you ask?" "Well," said Watton slowly, as if she mere deliberating something in her mind, "I am not sure but I am going to live there." "To live in St. Paul's Churchyard?" repeated Neal. "I have had a place offered me there, and it seems to me to be a very eligible one," said Watton. "It's to go as housekeeper in a house of business; some large wholesale place, by what I can understand. I should have two or three servants under me, and twenty-five pounds a-year. It seems good, doesn't it?" "Capital," assented Neal. "Is it in St. Paul's Churchyard?" "It's either in St. Paul's Churchyard or Cannon Street. She isn't quite sure which, she says. Anyway, it's close to St. Paul's." "Who's 'she'?" questioned Neal. "My sister. Her husband is in this establishment, a traveller, or something of that. He has got on well: he was only day assistant in a shop when she married him, fifteen years ago, and now he gets two or three hundred a year. When Miss Bettina told me I should have to leave, I wrote to my sister and asked her to look out for me, and she has sent me word of this." "But can she get the place for you?" inquired Neal, who was prompt at weighing probabilities and improbabilities in his mind. "It is in this way. The present housekeeper has been there a good while, and is much respected by the masters, and they have asked her to look out for somebody to take her place. My sister's intimate with her, and has spoken to her about me." "Why is she going to leave, herself?" questioned Neal, liking to come to the bottom of everything. Watton laughed. "She is going to begin life on her own score: she's about to be married. I think it's rather venturesome those middle-aged persons marrying: I wouldn't, I know." "Wait until you are asked," returned Neal, not over gallantly.