A possibility of intelligence dawned in the obliging young man's face, and he ran in-doors again. He came back with a hopeful air. "Yes, your ladyship. There is an old man belonging to the place knows him. He took him a letter once when he couldn't come himself, being laid up. He didn't want to tell at first, saying how he'd sworn. But I let him know your ladyship was the young man's mother, and he told. It's a bit far." The waiter stepped up to the coachman and gave him instructions. Emmie rewarded his obligingness with bounty in proportion to her relief at all proving so easy. Of course some one knew him. It was part of his boyishness to suppose he could hide, after his light had begun shining through the bushel, too. She looked out through the misty pane at the bright passing shop-windows; there seemed to her thousands in a row, and hundreds of carriages rolling along with her. She liked the city again exceedingly, and was glad to hope she might be there often after a time; it was so various, it put life into one. If only the murky cloud would lift that rested on the chimney-tops, and the rain stop making more the gray slime on the flags. It was a long distance. She looked out until she was tired and confused; then leaned back and meditated pleasantly for a time, then looked out again, with a little shock of disappointment at seeing no more bright windows. They were going more slowly; the streets here were narrow, the air seemed dingier, the houses and people looked miserable. She watched with a saddened interest these that she fixed upon as the poor city-people in their poor quarters. She was sorry for them, but she would be relieved when they were left behind for the gayer thoroughfares, or the roomier, more cheerful suburbs. Now at the entrance of a narrow court the carriage stopped. She wondered what could be hindering its progress, and fidgeted while the coachman left his box and came to the door. He opened it with a stolid face and held his finger to his hat, waiting for her to alight. "But--but"--she stammered, eying the poverty-stricken appearance of the place, "this cannot be it!" "The directions were clear, ma'am; I've followed them," said the man, with respectful firmness. "This is as near as I can get to the house; there's no room to turn around in the court." Emmie leaned back a moment, determined not to stir from her cushions--the mistake was on the face of it too stupid. The coachman stood waiting, a man of patience carved in wood. Emmie eyed him helplessly; then, seeing that the imposing creature would be satisfied with no less from her, with the abruptness of impatience she alighted, and rustled into the dark court, peering upward for the number. There it was. She knocked, and listened, with a heart in which strange things seemed to be happening. To the capless woman who opened she stammered a name, looking for the relief of being told instantly that none of that name lived there.