even than the splendid chance he had enjoyed at Medley. They found Madame Grandoni sitting alone in the twilight, very patient and peaceful, and having, after all, it was clear, accepted the situation too completely to fidget at such a trifle as her companion’s not coming home at a ladylike hour. She had placed herself in the back part of the tawdry little drawing-room, which looked into a small, smutty garden, and from the front window, which was open, the sound of the hurdy-gurdy and the voices of the children, who were romping to its music, came in to her through the summer dusk. The influence of London was there, in a kind of mitigated, far-away hum, and for some reason or other, at that moment, the place, to Hyacinth, took on the semblance of the home of an exile—a spot and an hour to be remembered with a throb of fondness in some danger or sorrow of after years. The old lady never moved from her chair as she saw the Princess come in with the little bookbinder, and her eyes rested on Hyacinth as familiarly as if she had seen him go out with her in the afternoon. The Princess stood before Madame Grandoni a moment, smiling. “I have done a great thing. What do you think I have done?” she asked, as she drew off her gloves. “God knows! I have ceased to think!” said the old woman, staring up, with her fat, empty hands on the arms of her chair. “I have come on foot from the far south of London—how many miles? four or five—and I’m not a particle tired.” “_Che forza, che forza!_” murmured Madame Grandoni. “She will knock you up, completely,” she added, turning to Hyacinth with a kind of customary compassion. “Poor darling, _she_ misses the carriage,” Christina remarked, passing out of the room. Madame Grandoni followed her with her eyes, and Hyacinth thought he perceived a considerable lassitude, a plaintive bewilderment and _hébétement_, in the old woman’s face. “Don’t you like to use cabs—I mean hansoms?” he asked, wishing to say something comforting to her. “It is not true that I miss anything; my life is only too full,” she replied. “I lived worse than this—in my bad days.” In a moment she went on: “It’s because you are here—she doesn’t like Assunta to come.” “Assunta—because I am here?” Hyacinth did not immediately catch her meaning. “You must have seen her Italian maid at Medley. She has kept her, and she’s ashamed of it. When we are alone Assunta comes for her bonnet. But she likes you to think she waits on herself.” “That’s a weakness—when she’s so strong! And what does Assunta think of it?” Hyacinth asked, looking at the stuffed birds in the window, the alabaster Cupid, the wax flowers on the chimney-piece, the florid antimacassars on the chairs, the sentimental engravings on the walls—in frames of _papier-mâché_ and ‘composition’, some of them enveloped in pink tissue-paper—and the prismatic glass pendants which seemed attached to everything. “She says, ‘What on earth will it matter to-morrow?’”