In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. Fanny dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But the vows, protestations, resolves for the future--these were all most solemn and impressive. And they all held good, too,--for a week and a half. And then our landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon Fanny had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake. The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to escape, I thought her Cockney dialect the basest and vilest ever evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper, corrodes and embitters every one it touches. On the third morning after our instalment in new lodgings--two almost exactly similar rooms, a little farther away from Mrs. Pelly and Howard Street, in a turning off the lower Hampstead Road--I received a letter, forwarded on from our first lodging, from Arncliffe, the editor to whom, some four years before this time, I had taken a letter of introduction. At intervals Arncliffe had accepted and published quite a number of articles from my pen, but we had not again met, unless one counts the occasion upon which I followed him into an expensive restaurant at luncheon time, on the off-chance of being noticed by him. The letter ran thus: 'Dear Mr. Freydon,--As you are probably aware, I am now in the chair of the _Advocate_, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other. Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this week, if you are not too busy.--Yours sincerely, Henry Arncliffe.'