But here is another picture. A lady dressed in a style of the most gorgeous splendor, whose business is of a more important kind than a mere search--she is probably an executrix of a will--and is just leaving the office, when she meets at the door another lady, to whom she makes a low courtesy, with an expression of decided malice on her showy countenance. The successful legatee can be seen in her face, while blank and startled disappointment appears in the other woman's features. Such is Doctors' Commons--and Such is Life. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. THE BOHEMIANS OF LONDON. GOING east through Oxford street, when you get near High Holborn, there is a narrow thoroughfare called Dean street. Turn down this and it will bring you to Carlisle street, a short and dark lane, a street only in name. This short street brings you to Soho Square, famous for its sauces and pickles all over the world from Calcutta to New York. The neighborhood is a very quiet one, as by its peculiar exits and passages it is cut off from the busiest part of London on either side of it, and leaving the Holborn or Oxford street, with their crowded traffic, shops, busses, and cabs, in a moment you are in this quiet square, with its little dot of green, fresh grass; that seems a relief after the arid business waste which you have just left. Just opposite is Greek street, which leads to St. Martin's lane, where a nest of small dealers in milk, butter, eggs, and groceries herd together, and where the poor, mean chop-houses form a perfect rookery, from which comes the fumes of hot coffee, muffins, mutton chops, and kidneys all the long day. Little dirty, rosy-cheeked children play here in the gutters right merrily all the day through, and the noises of the peddlers' cries, and the joyous mirth of the children "glorious at their games," are the only sounds that break the remarkable stillness of the noonday hour.