I wish the same could be said of our other newcomers who, with rare exceptions, exhibit a restlessness singularly unbecoming in a house that has stood for centuries. In the Ground Floor Back change for long was continued. It was the home of a Theatrical Agent and his family, and babyish prattle filled our once silent halls; it was the office of a Music Hall Syndicate, and strange noises from stranger instruments came floating out and up our stairs, and blonde young ladies in towering hats blocked the door. Then a Newspaper Correspondent drifted in and drifted out again; and next a publisher piled his books in the windows, and made it look so like the shop which is against the rules of the house that his disappearance seemed his just reward. After this a Steamship Company took possession, bringing suggestions of sunshine and spice with the exotic names of its vessels and the far-away Southern ports for which they sailed,--bringing, too, the spirit of youth, for it employed many young men and women whom I would meet in couples whispering on the stairs or going home at dusk hand in hand. Tender little idyls sprang up in our sober midst. But the staff of young lovers hit upon the roof as trysting-place at the luncheon hour, running races and playing tag up there, and almost tumbling through our skylight. Cupid, sporting overhead with wings exchanged for hob-nailed boots, was unendurable, and I had to call in the Landlord's Agent. He is the unfortunate go-between in all the tenants' differences and difficulties: a kind, weary, sympathetic man, designed by Nature for amiable, good-natured communication with his fellow men, and decreed by Fate and his calling to communicate with them constantly in their most disagreeable moods and phases. Half my fury evaporated at sight of his troubled face, and I might have endured the races and games of tag could I have foreseen that, almost as soon as he put a stop to them, the Steamship Company would take its departure.