“I am glad you did.”  Poor girl! she felt unconsciously pleased at finding herself still able to show a kindness to any body.

They walked on and on—­it was certainly a long street’s length—­to the stranger’s door, and it took Hilary a good way round from hers; but she said nothing of this, concluding, of course, that her companion was unaware of where she lived; in which she was mistaken.  They stopped at last before a respectable house near Brunswick Square, bearing a brass plate, with the words “Miss Balquidder.”

“That is my name, and very much obliged to you, my dear.  How it rains!  Ye’re just drenched.”

Hilary smiled and shook her damp shawl.  “I shall take no harm.  I am used to go out in all weathers.”

“Are you a governess?” The question was so direct and kindly, that it hardly seemed an impertinence.

“Yes; but I have no pupils, and I fear I shall never get any.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose, because I know nobody here.  It seems so very hard to get teaching in London.  But I beg your pardon.”

“I beg yours,” said Miss Balquidder—­not without a certain dignity—­“for asking questions of a stranger.  But I was once a stranger here myself, and had a ‘sair fecht,’ as we say in Scotland, before I could earn even my daily bread.  Though I wasn’t a governess, still I know pretty well what the sort of life is, and if I had daughters who must work for their bread, the one thing I would urge upon them should be—­’Never become a governess.’ "

“Indeed.  For what reason?”

“I’ll not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your wet clothes on; but as I said, if you will do me the favor to call.”

“Thank you!” said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in London caution to dread making a new acquaintance.  Besides, she liked the rough hewn, good natured face; and the Scotch accent was sweet to her ear.

Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling her sisters the engagement she had made.  Selina was extremely shocked, and considered it quite necessary that the London Directory, the nearest clergyman, or, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, who living in the parish, must know—­should be consulted as to Miss Balquidder’s respectability.

“She has much more reason to question ours,” recollected Hilary, with some amusement; for I never told her my name or address.  She does not know a single thing about me.

Which fact, arguing the matter energetic ally two days after, the young lady might not have been so sure of, could she have penetrated the ceiling overhead.  In truth, Miss Balquidder, a prudent person, who never did things by halves, and, like most truly generous people, was cautious even in her extremist fits of generosity, at that very moment was sitting in Mrs. Jones’s first floor, deliberately discovering every single thing possible to be learned about the Leaf family.

Nevertheless, owing to Selina’s indignant pertinacity, Hilary’s own hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which rose up and faded like the rest, the possible acquaintance lay dormant for two or three weeks; till, alas! the fabulous wolf actually came to the door; and the sisters, after paying their week’s rent, looked aghast at one another, not knowing where in the wide world the next week’s rent was to come from.