"Well," observed Monteith, "if it is Ventin as I suspect, I think it will be the beginning of the end." CHAPTER XII. THE MISSING LINK. What queer old places there are in Brocade Street--why, the very name is suggestive of the stately times of the early Georges, and indeed, Brocade Street was a fashionable locality even earlier, when Queen Anne was ruling, and Marlborough was winning his brilliant victories, and Duchess Sarah was alternately bullying and coaxing her weak-minded mistress. A dark, narrow street with tall houses of red brick on either side, innumerable windows, and heavy-looking doors which had often opened to let out Belinda to her sedan-chair, or Sir Plume on the way to Wills, to have a chat with Sterne and Addison. Fancy Swift, with his dark, lowering face, walking down this street with his thoughts fixed upon a possible bishopric, or Dick Steele, swaggering along in his rich dress, stopping to take off his hat to Lady Betty Modish, who looked archly at him through the window. And then, at night, when all the streets were in darkness, save for the link boys, poor lost Richard Savage wandering about in company with Samuel Johnson even at that early age burly and contradictory. Ah, yes; great spirits were abroad in those stirring times, and Brocade Street could tell a few stories of interest, had it a voice; but now the tide of fashion had rolled westward, and the street was left silent and lonely to think over its past glories. All those famous old houses, with their broad, oak staircases and large, stately apartments, were now used as lodging-houses for decayed gentlefolk; and city clerks found shelter in the rooms which had once re-echoed to the brilliant epigrams of Swift, or the smooth utterances of Joseph Addison. There were also some artists to be found in the street, for they loved it for its old associations and the dead-world flavour which haunted all the houses?-a perfume of past memories of the beaux and belles of Good Queen Anne's gay Court. Among these was Mr. Taunton, who occupied a tall, gaunt, grim-looking mansion at the upper end, and, though his merry little wife tried hard to persuade him to move to a more civilized locality, he steadily refused to exchange the dead glories of Brocade Street for the fashionable quarters of Kensington. So, Mrs. Taunton did the best she could, and beautified the quaint, oak-panelled rooms with rich tapestries, curious old china, and bizarre-looking brasses.