had been got up by some well-meaning people to draw the poor to his church.  They were tickets for the respectable end of the schoolroom, and Andrew having obtained permission to leave an hour earlier, took Miriam in her very best dress, and with one or two little additional and specially purchased articles of finery.  It never entered Mr. Montgomery’s head to invite even Andrew to the music hall.  He was ashamed of it, and he saw that Andrew was not exactly the person to be taken there.  Mr. Montgomery had two classes of songs, both of which found favour with his ordinary nightly audience.  One was coarse, and the other sentimental.

Of the coarse, his always applauded “Hampstead-Heath Donkey and what he thought of his Customers” might be taken as a sample, but there was just as vigorous clapping when he produced his “Sackmaker’s Dream,” and this he now sang.  Miriam was much affected by it, and dwelt upon it as the three—­the singer, Andrew, and herself—­walked home to their lodgings whither Mr. Montgomery had been invited to supper.

“Did you write the Sackmaker’s Dream yourself?” she asked, as they went along.

“Yes; just by way of a change.  It does not pay to sing nothing but comic stuff.”

“It is very pathetic.  Is it true?”

“Oh, I don’t quite know.  Founded on fact, as they say, dressed up a bit by the author,” and Mr. Montgomery laughed.

“But how did you ever hear of such a thing?”

“Oh, I’ve heard a good many strange things since I’ve been knocking about town.”

“Then you had some particular person in your eye when you were composing it?”

“Yes, partly, but not much of her,” and Mr. Montgomery laughed again.

“How much?”

“How inquisitive you are.  Well, to tell you the truth, no more than this, that one night I saw one of these women coming out of a sack factory.  She looked awfully wretched, and I made up all the rest.”

Miriam was much astonished.  She was actually in company with an author, and with one who could invent scenes, descriptions, and characters like those in the novels of which she was now so fond.  Mr. Montgomery was a marvel to her.  He, too, was somewhat struck with Miriam; with her beauty, and with a certain freshness in her observations; but a man who had lived as he had lived in London is not likely to admire any woman with much fervour, and indeed the incapacity for genuine admiration of women is one of the strongest arguments against such a life.

They had their supper, and after supper some whisky was produced, and Andrew and Montgomery smoked.