After this business you might suppose that Mr. Stanford made haste to remove his plate and his lamp to his old or another house. Not at all. He found it convenient to stay; and I contrived to endure him for the sake of the child, that was now between three and four years of age: a poor, feeble little creature, with but slender promise of life in its white face and thin frame. A few weeks after the trouble with Mr. Potter had happened I went to my uncle’s house near the Tower to sup and spend the evening. As with Stepney, so with this part; it has sunk pretty low. Yet when I was a girl some very respectable families lived in the neighbourhood of the Tower. My uncle’s house, as I have said, included his offices. They had been the front and back parlours. In the front office sat a couple of clerks, and the back was my uncle’s private office, where he received his clients. The family occupied the upper part of the house, according to the good old fashion of trade, when men were not ashamed of their business. The rooms above corresponded with the offices below: the front room was furnished as a drawing-room; the back as a parlour. I was as much at home in my uncle’s house as if I had been his child, and, passing the servants who opened the door, I went upstairs to my aunt’s bedroom to take off my bonnet and brush my hair. On the landing I heard voices in the drawing-room. I guessed my uncle had company, and hoped, unless there were others, that it was not old Mr. Simmonds, a ship-broker, a person to whom my uncle was always very civil and hospitable, as being useful in business, but who, to my mind, was the most wearisome, insipid, teasing old man that ever chair groaned under. I removed my bonnet--you would laugh, were you to see the great, coal-scuttle-shaped contrivance it was--brushed my hair, viewed myself a little complacently, for it was an April day, the wind brisk, and my walk had put some colour into my cheeks, from which my dark eyes took a clearer fire, and went to the drawing-room. On entering I found my uncle sitting with a gentleman. The stranger was not Mr. Simmonds. My aunt stood at the window, looking out. ‘Why, here am I watching for you!’ said she. ‘Marian, my dear, Captain Butler.’