It was more especially distressing to him to observe how anxiously his poor child now supplicated as a favour to be permitted to engage in an occupation, from which he knew that, under other circumstances, she would have timidly shrunk. He was afflicted to hear such solicitations; but he had so much pleasure in his daughter's society, and so little occasion to go out, that he remained in his hotel the greater part of the morning, or more properly speaking the day. Towards evening however it occurred to him, and to any one else it would have occurred much earlier, that it might be the means of setting his mind a little at rest, and of giving him some little ground of hope, if he should go once more into the City and enquire of his agent into the probability of a settlement or arrangement of his banker's affairs. While Mr Primrose was gone into the City Penelope was left mournfully alone. It is indeed very dull to spend a long solitary evening in a strange place without occupation, and with nothing to think upon but painful recollections and fearful anticipations. The room in which the poor girl was left was large and well furnished, but there were no books in it, and the pictures were but indifferent engravings in splendid frames. There was a newspaper, but that was soon exhausted. There were many persons in the house, but Penelope knew none of them, and none of them cared about her. It had been very different at Smatterton, and at Neverden; in those two villages everybody knew her, and everybody loved her more or less; and there she never felt herself alone, for she knew that her good uncle was near her, and there is some pleasure in knowing that a good friend is near us. There, when she heard footsteps and voices, they were familiar voices and the footsteps of friends; but in the large hotel, where she sat alone waiting for her father, she heard only the voices of strangers. And when for the sake of a little variety she drew aside the drapery of the long windows and looked down upon the lamp illuminated street, there was something quite melancholy in the dim appearance and the monotonous sounds. Carriage-wheels seemed to roll incessantly, and their passing lights were miserably reflected from myriads of little puddles coldly shining amidst the uneven pavement.