“Oh! that will be truly delightful!” exclaimed Perdita. “A story of your own composition! Begin, Charles--dear Charles: I am dying to hear this specimen of your abilities.” “I am afraid it will prove but a poor one,” returned Hatfield. “At the same time, such as it is, I will repeat it.” Mrs. Fitzhardinge, having overheard this dialogue, intimated the pleasure she should experience in listening to the tale;--and as the chaise was now rolling along a road rendered, as it were, soft by the accumulation of the dust of summer, Charles was not compelled to pitch his voice to a key unpleasantly high, in relating the ensuing narrative. CHAPTER CXLII. THE DRESS-MAKER: A LOVE STORY. “It was between nine and ten o’clock on a dark and rainy night, in the month of November, 1834, that a young female, plainly but decently attired, was wending her way along Oxford Street. She had a large parcel beneath her cloak;--and this parcel she protected against the rain with the most jealous care,--thinking more, in fact, of the object of her solicitude than of picking her path with sufficient nicety to enable her to avoid the puddles of water that were ankle-deep in some parts of the pavement--but more especially at the crossings. For, in sooth, it was a bitter--bitter night:--the windows of heaven appeared to be indeed opened, and the rain fell in torrents. The streets seemed to be positively covered in with an arcade of umbrellas, on which the quick drops rattled down with the violence of hail. The young female whom I have mentioned, had an umbrella;--but she found it rather a difficult task to hold it comfortably with one hand, while her left arm encircled as it were the precious parcel beneath her cloak. For the passengers in the streets of London are never over remarkable for their civility to each other--still less so on such a night as the one I am describing. The consequence was that there was an incessant struggle amongst the strong to push their umbrellas safely through the mass, and amongst the weak to prevent their own umbrellas from being dragged out of their hands;--but it naturally happened that the latter fared the worst.