"He first thought I'd taken leave of my senses; but I've allayed all his suspicions." And so we went jauntily on along the wide road to the Obelisk and then up the London Road, where the costermongers' barrows were ranged and hoarse-voiced men were crying their cheap wares to thrifty housewives. All was strange to her. She knew nothing of working London, and viewed everything with keen interest. I could not help smiling at her demure little figure in the cheap black dress. At the bottom of the London Road we entered a tram and went as far as Camberwell Gate, the neighbourhood where she had decided to establish herself as Mrs William Morton. Leaving the main road we turned down a long, dreary street of uniform smoke-blackened houses with deep areas in search of a card showing "apartments to let furnished," and at last discovering one, we ascended the steps with considerable trepidation and knocked. "You talk to them," I whispered. "You want three rooms furnished," and next second the door opened and we were face to face with a big, red-faced woman whose bloated countenance was certainly due to the undue consumption of alcohol--probably that spirit so dear to the lower class feminine palate--Old Tom. Sybil explained that we were in search of apartments, and we were conducted up to the second floor and shown three dirty, badly-furnished rooms, the very sight of which was depressing. Tibbie's gaze met mine, and then she inquired the price. "Of course, you'd want the use of the kitchen. That's downstairs," replied the woman. "Oh! there's no kitchen, I see," Tibbie remarked quickly, seizing that defect as a means of escape from the miserable place. "I'm afraid then they won't suit us. My husband is always so very particular about having the kitchen on the same floor." And then with many regrets we withdrew, and found ourselves once more out upon the pavement. House after house we visited, some very poor but clean, others dirty, neglected and malodorous. Surely there are no more dismal dwelling-places in England than furnished lodgings in South London. Through the Boyson and Albany Roads, through Villa Street and Faraday Street we searched, but discovered no place where Tibbie could possibly live. Tousled-haired women were mostly the landladies, evil-faced scowling creatures who drank gin, and talked with that nasal twang so essentially the dialect of once-rural Camberwell. At last in Neate Street, a quiet thoroughfare lying between the Camberwell and Old Kent Roads, we saw a card in the parlour window of a small house lying back from the street behind a strip of smoke-dried garden. On inquiry the landlady, a clean, hard-working, middle-aged woman, took us upstairs, and there we found three cheaply-furnished rooms with tiny kitchen all bearing the hall-mark of the hire system.