While she was sitting in my best chair, who should dash in but Mr. Dabney on his way downstairs. On catching sight of Mrs. Wynne, he was for a swift retreat; but the old lady stopped him and compelled him to sit down and be courteous if not courtly. As they conversed, her eye, by malignant chance, alighted upon my copy of the _Pickwick Papers_, and she asked me to hand it to her. "Ah, yes," she said, "_Pickwick!_--what a wonderful book! You, Mr. Dabney," she continued, "being a literary man, will be interested in hearing that I once met the author of this work." Mr. Dabney shot me a tragic look. "Did you indeed?" he said, adding quickly, "but, of course, you told me about it when I had the pleasure of meeting you at dinner in Queen Anne's Gate." "I don't think so," said Mrs. Wynne. "I don't remember it." "Assuredly," said Mr. Dabney, "I remember it very vividly." "Very strange that I should not," replied the old lady; "but it happened in this way. I was at Manchester with me dear husband some time in the sixties. I forget the exact year. Me husband was there on business, and it happened that Mr. Dickens was giving one of his inimitable readings. We all stayed in the same hotel, and Mr. Dickens breakfasted at the same table as ourselves. The toast was not good, and I remember that Mr. Dickens..." At this point I stole gently from the room, for Mr. Dabney, I felt, must be rescued at any cost. Hastily scribbling a note I gave it to Ern, who was bending himself into a hoop on the landing, and telling him to count ten and then bring it to my room, I returned. Mrs. Wynne had just reached Mr. Thackeray. "It was," she was saying, "at a conversazione at the Royal Society. Me dear husband and I were leaving at the same time as the great man..." Here came a rap at the door. "A letter for Mr. Dabney," said Em, "marked urgent." "Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Dabney, and took it. He read it gravely, cast me a glance of intense gratitude, and murmuring something about a very important matter, bade Mrs. Wynne a cordial farewell and hurried away. I heard a jingling of coins outside, and as Ern immediately afterwards descended the stairs four at a time, I guessed that for the moment bulls' eyes superseded contortions. "A nice man," says Mrs. Wynne, "but not a good listener. His thoughts seem inclined to wander. I hope he is clever in proportion. Did you say he wrote novels? I must read one." The next day Mrs. Wynne returned to Ludlow, taking the Queen Anne's Gate family, with the exception of Lionel, with her. I was left alone. It was the first time that Naomi had not been within call ever since I returned to England; and I was lost.