But on second thoughts Mary decided that she would go to the address. If the lady in question was really so kind, might she not take her without a character? Why not tell her the whole story and throw herself on her generosity? Anyhow, she would call and see what she could make of it--there could be no harm in that. Poor Tommy Hudson would have hardly liked to know how little he was in this girl's thoughts this day, genuinely grateful though she was. He would not have confessed it to himself, but he would have preferred had she been miserable on his account. How selfish at the bottom this love of a man often is; yet after all, a woman will love him even for the very selfishness of his love; so as all parties are suited there is nothing to complain of. Mary walked all the way by the splendid shops of Oxford Street, up the long Edgware Road, then to the left along the canal which brought her to the vicinity of the address she sought. While yet some few hundred yards from it, and uncertain of the way, she found herself in a street of small two-storied houses, somewhat like that in which her father lived. The street was quite deserted save for a little group in front of one of the houses, the door of which was open. The group consisted of a cabman on a hansom, a rough-looking man and a tall pale woman on the pavement, seemingly engaged in lively altercation. Mary determined to ask her way of the woman and crossed the street to do so. On approaching she perceived that the rough-looking man had placed his foot in the doorway, thus preventing the woman from shutting him out as she evidently wished to do. "No!" he was shouting in a menacing voice. "Bli' me if I move till you give me a bob! D'ye think I've follered this ere cab at a run all the way from Paddington, and lifted down that 'ere 'eavy box for a blooming tanner? Not I, marm." Mary, being a London girl, grasped the situation at once. The lady had arrived by train, had driven home with her luggage in this cab, which had been followed by one of those pests of suburban London, the cab-runners--ruffians that are on the look out for unwary travellers, pursue the cabs to help take the baggage down--go away civilly enough with their just pay if they have to deal with men; but, as in the present instance, when they have to deal with women in lonely streets with none to defend them, put on the bully and extort double their due. The cabman was leaning over the box of his hansom, looking pensively on the fray, waiting to see how it would end, but not interfering, remaining strictly neutral. Mary arrived at this juncture, and taking all in, was inspired to address the woman with these words, spoken in a confident tone. "It's all right, ma'am, I've seen the policeman. He's coming on now; he's just round the corner."