“Very well.  I have no objection.  I will go and fetch my luggage.  I suppose I may come in at once?”

“The sooner the better, young man, in a place like London.  The sooner you come home the better pleased I shall be.  There now!”

So saying, she walked solemnly down-stairs before him, and let him out.  Hugh hurried away to fetch his luggage, delighted that he had so soon succeeded in finding just what he wanted.  As he went, he speculated on the nature of his landlady, trying to account for her odd rough manner, and the real kindness of her rude words.  He came to the conclusion that she was naturally kind to profusion, and that this kindness had, some time or other, perhaps repeatedly, been taken shameful advantage of; that at last she had come to the resolution to defend herself by means of a general misanthropy, and supposed that she had succeeded, when she had got no further than to have so often imitated the tone of her own behaviour when at its

crossest, as to have made it habitual by repetition.

In all probability some unknown sympathy had drawn her to Hugh.  She might have had a son about his age, who had run away thirty years ago.  Or rather, for she seemed an old maid, she had been jilted some time by a youth about the same size as Hugh; and therefore she loved him the moment she saw him.  Or, in short, a thousand things.  Certainly seldom have lodgings been let so oddly or so cheaply.  But some impulse or other of the whimsical old human heart, which will have its way, was satisfied therein.

When he returned in a couple of hours, with his boxes on the top of a cab, the door was opened, before he knocked, by a tidy maid, who, without being the least like her mistress, yet resembled her excessively.  She helped him to carry his boxes up-stairs; and when he reached his room, he found a fire burning cheerily, a muffin down before it, a tea-kettle singing on the hob, and the tea-tray set upon a nice white cloth on a table right in front of the fire, with an old-fashioned high-backed easy-chair by its side —­ the very chair to go to sleep in over a novel.  The old lady soon made her appearance, with the teapot in one hand, and a plate of butter in the other.

“Oh! thank you,” said Hugh.  “This is comfortable!”

She answered only by compressing her lips till her mouth vanished altogether, and nodding her head as much as to say:  “I know it is.  I intended it should be.”  She then poured water into the teapot, set it down by the fire, and vanished.

Hugh sat down in the easy-chair, and resolved to be comfortable, at least till he had had his tea; after which he would think what he was to do next.  A knock at the door —­ and his landlady entered, laid a penny newspaper on the table, and went away.  This was just what he wanted to complete his comfort.  He took it up, and read while he consumed his bread and butter.  When he had had enough of tea and newspaper, he said to himself: