As soon as the man was locked up, he went to Lime Court. The moon was shining, and the narrow passage lay bright beneath her. Along the street, people were going and coming, though it was past midnight, but the court was very still. He walked into it as far as the spot where we had together seen Miss Clare. The door at which she had entered was open; but he knew nothing of the house or its people, and feared to compromise her by making inquiries. He walked several times up and down, somewhat anxious, but gradually persuading himself that in all probability no further annoyance had befallen her; until at last he felt able to leave the place. He came back to our house, where, finding his brother at his final pipe in the study, he told him all about their adventure. CHAPTER XXIV. MY FIRST TERROR. One of the main discomforts in writing a book is, that there are so many ways in which every thing, as it comes up, might be told, and you can't tell which is the best. You believe there must be a _best_ way; but you might spend your life in trying to satisfy yourself which was that best way, and, when you came to the close of it, find you had done nothing,--hadn't even found out the way. I have always to remind myself that something, even if it be far from the best thing, is better than nothing. Perhaps the only way to arrive at the best way is to make plenty of blunders, and find them out. This morning I had been sitting a long time with my pen in my hand, thinking what this chapter ought to be about,--that is, what part of my own history, or of that of my neighbors interwoven therewith, I ought to take up next,--when my third child, my little Cecilia, aged five, came into the room, and said,-- "Mamma, there's a poor man at the door, and Jemima won't give him any thing." "Quite right, my dear. We must give what we can to people we know. We are sure then that it is not wasted." "But he's so _very_ poor, mamma!" "How do you know that?" "Poor man! he has _only_ three children. I heard him tell Jemima. He was _so_ sorry! And _I_'m very sorry, too." "But don't you know you mustn't go to the door when any one is talking to Jemima?" I said. "Yes, mamma. I didn't go to the door: I stood in the hall and peeped." "But you mustn't even stand in the hall," I said. "Mind that." This was, perhaps, rather an oppressive reading of a proper enough rule; but I had a very special reason for it, involving an important event in my story, which occurred about two years after what I have last set down.