At least one reprehensible suggestion as to the cause of this convulsion might have offered itself to a vulgar intelligence--the tyranny (to put it sweetly) of over-small shoes. My Lord Murk, leaving his fine prudence and philosophy squabbling in the background, walked up to and accosted the sufferer in deadly earnest and quite courtly French-- “Mademoiselle is in distress? I am at her service and command.” The lady gave an irrepressible start, and shuddered herself rigid. Certainly she was abominably pretty--straight-nosed, wonder-eyed as a mousing kitten. But she answered with unmistakable petulance, and in a winning manner of English, “I am beholden to monsieur; but it is nothing--nothing at all. I beg monsieur to proceed on his way.” Ned bowed and withdrew. The dismissal was peremptory; he had no choice. But, daring to glance back as he was about to take another turning out of the empty street, he was moved to pause again in a veritable little panic of curiosity. For, on the instant of his espial, a “clearing” spasm, it seemed, was in process of bedevilling the angelic form; and immediately the form repossessed itself of the nerves of motion, skedaddled round a corner, and disappeared. Now sudden inspiration came to Master Ned gossip. He perceived that the lady had been standing upon a grating. Like a thief, in good earnest, he stole back to the scene of the _contretemps_, and went into a silent fit of laughter. Two little high red heels, bristling with nails, were firmly wedged between the bars of the grille. With a guilty round-about glance, he squatted, and dug and beat them out with a sharp stone. Then (observe the embryonic crudeness of romance in the shell), he put them--nails and all--into his tail-pocket. CHAPTER II. Had Lord Murk been of a present inclination less reserved and withdrawing, he had months before found easy access to the presence of the merry maid, whose little red heels seemed now, as it were, to have taken his misogamy by the tail. For, indeed, when at last he sought, he found this young lady’s identity established in a word. She was neither more nor less (with a reservation in respect to the gossips) than the adopted daughter of a very notable _gouvernante_ to a royal family; and she happened to have already sojourned in Bury some six months, during which he, the hermit-crab, had chosen to tuck himself away apathetic into his shell.