’He’s said to me often and often, Ally,’ she took this occasion to remark, ’"I would have all men and women happy! I’d wipe the tears from all eyes if I could!" He has the tenderest, the most sensitive heart!’ So, would Alison go upon this charitable quest? Of course she would—thankful to be sent on any quest that did not lead in the direction of St. James’s Square. Now, it will be said that, in these pages, our poor Alison has run too many messages, and, indeed, she has. But the reader, of his own experience, probably knows that there is in this world a certain class of little, dainty, clinging, tender women whose messages are all run for them as a matter of course. To this class did Nancy Maclehose belong. There was a kind of understanding that rough walks in dirty streets, and in all kinds of weather, were not her portion. Nor did she exact this consideration from her friends; it came to her as a sort of right, a kind of tacit acknowledgment of her power—that power to which all bowed down who came in contact with her—the willing Alison, the sturdy Jean, her own devoted little boys—even Herries himself, though he, indeed, was a rebellious slave. So Alison set out, quite willingly, in all good faith that she went upon a charitable mission. It was mid-February now, and there was an extraordinary mildness in the air. The frost and snow, the bitter north winds were gone. A tender sky, sweet with the very tints of spring, swam above the stern old town, and a westerly wind, soft as a kiss, touched Alison’s cheek as she walked. She was acquainted with her destination, the Wabster’s Close—a most malodorous and unpleasing quarter; but Alison was not afraid of such places now, and merely picked her way with added caution over the foul causeway and slippery cobbles. She had nothing but a name, Clow, as uncommon as it was hideous to go by, and by inquiry she discovered the tenement or ’land,’ where a family thus named was said to live. It was up a stair of an agglomerated and indescribable filth—the worst that Alison had yet seen. No wonder, she thought, that a person living in such a place needed a charitable dole. She paused at a door, behind which there seemed to rise a perfect Babel of sound—a Babel, yet curiously subdued, as though many people spoke, and spoke at once, yet in hushed voices. She knocked, and a woman opened, who, with a curious, indescribable air of excitement, plucked her by the sleeve, whispering hoarsely,—’Come in by—come ben!’