of diet and disposition.  The population of 5 Baker’s Terrace was nine, mostly bell-ringers.  Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; with six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual.  All the week long Mary Ann was toiling up and down the stairs or sweeping them, making beds or puddings, polishing boots or fire-irons.  Holidays were not in Mary Ann’s calendar; and if Sunday ever found her on her knees, it was only when she was scrubbing out the kitchen.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; it had not, apparently, made Mary Ann a bright girl.

The piano duly came in through the window like a burglar.  It was a good instrument, but hired.  Under Lancelot’s fingers it sang like a bird and growled like a beast.  When the piano was done growling Lancelot usually started.  He paced up and down the room, swearing audibly.  Then he would sit down at the table and cover ruled paper with hieroglyphics for hours together.  His movements were erratic to the verge of mystery.  He had no fixed hours for anything; to Mary Ann he was hopeless.  At any given moment he might be playing on the piano, or writing on the curiously ruled paper, or stamping about the room, or sitting limp with despair in the one easy chair, or drinking whisky and water, or smoking a black meerschaum, or reading a book, or lying in bed, or driving away in a hansom, or walking about Heaven alone knew where or why.  Even Mrs. Leadbatter, whose experience of life was wider than Mary Ann’s, considered his vagaries almost unchristian, though to the highest degree gentlemanly.  Sometimes, too, he sported the swallow-tail and the starched breast-plate, which was a wonder to Mary Ann, who knew that waiters were connected only with the most stylish establishments.  Baker’s Terrace did not wear evening dress.

Mary Ann liked him best in black and white.  She thought he looked like the pictures in the young ladies’ novelettes, which sometimes caught her eye as she passed newsvendors’ shops on errands.  Not that she was read in this literature—­she had no time for reading.  But, even when clothed in rough tweeds, Lancelot had for Mary Ann an aristocratic halo; in his dressing-gown he savoured of the grand Turk.  His hands were masterful:  the fingers tapering, the nails pedantically polished.  He had fair hair, with moustache to match; his brow was high and white, and his grey eyes could flash fire.  When he drew himself up to his full height, he threatened the gas globes.  Never had No. 5 Baker’s Terrace boasted of such a tenant.  Altogether, Lancelot loomed large to Mary Ann; she dazzled him with his own boots in humble response, and went about sad after a reprimand for putting his papers in order.  Her whole theory of life oscillated in the presence of a being whose views could so run counter to her strongest instincts.  And yet, though the universe seemed tumbling about her ears when he told her she must not move a scrap of manuscript, howsoever wildly