The solemn but beautiful days of a fine English October, surely dreary nowhere except in London, but there preëminently so, were half through their number, when Mrs. Watts, the owner of a highly respectable lodging-house in Queen-street, Mayfair, received with surprise and gratitude the naturally unexpected application for apartments to let. It was just the time of year when there was least going on, when people were quite decidedly 'out of town' whoever went out of town at all, and people who hurriedly came back had not yet made up their minds to do so. Mrs. Watts had quite a superfluity of rooms to let, though her drawing-rooms were taken for what she had hoped as a permanency. The disappointment of this expectation, however, did not enable her to hold out the hope to the new applicants that she should be able to afford them the accommodation of what Mrs. Watts quite sincerely believed to be an unparalleled drawing-room floor; she was only going to lose her lodger, she hadn't yet lost him; and the new applicants, who made their appearance under exceptionably respectable circumstances, with a large quantity of luggage, and in a handsome hired carriage, were obliged to content themselves with the dining-room, a large and commodious bedroom at the back of it, and a pleasant bedroom upstairs, at a considerable height, for the gentleman. The applicants were a gentleman and a lady, brother and sister, as they hastened to explain; and Mrs. Watts was afterwards heard to remark, 'That never was she more took by the looks of any one than by those of the gentleman. She had nothing to say against the lady either, who was very good-looking and quiet mannered, only she didn't seem quite so much of a lady as the gentleman seemed of a gentleman; and if there is anybody,' Mrs. Watts would add in conclusion, 'as can see far through a deal board, a lone woman as lets lodgings in Queen-street, Mayfair, is that person.' The arrangements were quickly concluded, and it was understood that the new lodgers would come in that night; in fact, after a short parley, it was proposed that the lady should remain with Mrs. Watts then and there; while the gentleman went out to luncheon at a restaurant, and undertook not to return until everything was in order. This bargain concluded, the gentleman went his way; and the lady applied herself, with the hearty coöperation of Mrs. Watts and a prim housemaid, to the disposition and arrangement of the voluminous luggage which had accompanied them, and which, considering the very quiet appearance of the lady, who was attired in deep mourning weeds, and had anything but a dressy appearance, might perhaps have been brought rather as a certificate of character, in the event of it being inconvenient to apply for recommendations, than as representing actual necessity.