The day appeared interminable. It wore away at last; and the hour drew nigh when I was to meet my young incognita. I told Isidora of my morning adventure; but I suppressed the fact, that an evening interview was to follow it. I feared that Mr. Hartley, from the habitual suspicion with which he scrutinized every transaction of life that bore a questionable feature, would not approve of my becoming patron to a girl so pretty and unprotected as the soldier’s orphan, and therefore I kept that intention to myself. Some business called him out--my mistress complained of head-ache, and retired--the clock struck nine--I rang for my cloak and stick--for of late I never went abroad after dark without a stout shillelah--and, as I was leaving the room, Dominique placed a sealed paper in my hand, which he said had been just left with the porter by a person who disappeared the moment it was delivered. The billet was short; and the curious device attached to it, announced that it came from the gipsy. It ran thus:-- “Meet me on the right-hand side of Blackfriars Bridge, leading from the City, precisely at midnight. The crisis is at hand! I wish to prepare you for it! Fail not!” I read the writing twice, and determined to arm myself well and obey the summons punctually. Mr. Hartley was from home. No doubt he would appear ere the hour of meeting arrived, and I waited his return for half an hour, but in vain. The evening wore heavily away--I thought of my appointment with the fair incognita--there would be time enough to keep it, and it would fill up an hour agreeably. I left the hotel, and walked briskly towards the place where the soldier’s orphan told me she would be in waiting. I reached the “trysting place,” and stopped before the entrance of a narrow lane, which the lofty houses on either side rendered still more gloomy. That mass of masonry, St. Paul’s, flung its deep shadow over the space beneath it; and there I halted, looking towards the opening between the houses, from which I expected that my incognita would present herself. I was not kept long in waiting. A slight dark figure flitted past, and a soft voice asked, in well-remembered accents, “Is that you?” It was the soldier’s daughter. She took my arm; and under her guidance, I entered the gloomy alley from which I had seen her issue. But I must pause. ‘Where was my foster brother? and how was that worthy personage employed? He, whose fortunes I have described as being so strangely united with mine--where was he now, when the crisis of my fate was coming? Stay, gentle reader. Leave me for a few minutes with the young lady--remember, the expedition was conducted on platonic principles--and let us inquire what befel Mark Antony O’Toole, and his excellent ally.