Opposite, at the door of the house in which dwelt the young girl upon whom his eyes had gazed so fondly, stood a man who in costume and manner was the reverse of prepossessing. Who was he, and what could he want there? were questions which Harry at once put to himself. He had come on business--most disagreeable business--that was beyond a doubt, for there was nothing either in his garb or in his manner which betrayed the idle visitor. Harry, therefore, conceived it to be his especial duty--with rather questionable propriety, however--to observe his movements. He saw the man examine the house from the scraper at the door, to the parapet below the roof, and then make a peculiar sign to some person or persons, who lying _perdu_, prevented Harry from catching a glimpse of them. Then he gave a treble knock at the door, facing which he was standing. Young Vivian did not like that knock. It was not a peal of three distinct knocks for a third-floor lodger, nor was it the easy rat-tat-tat of a genteel visitor. No; it was a bad imitation of a postman’s knock, followed by a faltering, sneaking tap. Had any embarrassed individual, accustomed to visits from rent-distrainers or process-servers, heard that knock and caught sight of that man at his door, he would have instantly implored some other inmate of the house to tell the visitor that he had sailed to the furthest extremity of the Hudson Bay territory, and would never be home again. The fact was, it was not alone that the knock was a tell-tale, but the man’s dress also loudly proclaimed the purport of the visits he paid. Upon his head, slinking down to his eyebrows, was a hat which had long endured severe stress of weather, to its disadvantage. Upon his body--and that was his mark--he wore a loose brown great coat, styled by advertising tailors, “the sack,” It was dirty, discoloured, much worn at the pockets, and strongly impregnated with the odour of the cheapest and rankest tobacco. That coat, worn at the hottest end of June, betrayed him. It was his sign-board. A child brought up in that neighbourhood would have told you, by that coat, worn in the height of summer heats, the nature of his profession. The young goldsmith, on seeing him, held his breath; he had a conviction that the man’s errand would of necessity prove an unpleasant one; and, after a moment’s reflection, he stepped over the threshold of the shop-door, apparently engaged in looking up and down the street, but he never took his eye for an instant off the man in the dingy brown coat. That individual had just raised his extremely dirty fingers to repeat the offensive knock, when the street-door slowly opened, and an elderly, wan-faced man presented himself. “It is her father,” muttered the young goldsmith, retiring within his shop, yet only a few paces, for--though uninfluenced by any meanly inquisitive motives--he felt constrained to watch the proceedings of the shabby, brown-coated personage.