The cabman looked helplessly about him with a bewildered, questioning gaze, as one to whom alone of all men this unheard-of and extraordinary thing had happened.  Then, rubbing his head, he mounted slowly on to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing to the universe.  The lady smoothed down her dress, pushed back her hair under her little felt hat, and strode in through the hall-door, which was closed behind her.  As with a whisk her short skirts vanished into the darkness, the two spectators—­Miss Bertha and Miss Monica Williams—­sat looking at each other in speechless amazement.  For fifty years they had peeped through that little window and across that trim garden, but never yet had such a sight as this come to confound them.

“I wish,” said Monica at last, “that we had kept the field.”

“I am sure I wish we had,” answered her sister.

——­

CHAPTER II.

BREAKING THE ICE.

The cottage from the window of which the Misses Williams had looked out stands, and has stood for many a year, in that pleasant suburban district which lies between Norwood, Anerley, and Forest Hill.  Long before there had been a thought of a township there, when the Metropolis was still quite a distant thing, old Mr. Williams had inhabited “The Brambles,” as the little house was called, and had owned all the fields about it.  Six or eight such cottages scattered over a rolling country-side were all the houses to be found there in the days when the century was young.  From afar, when the breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the great city might be heard, like the breaking of the tide of life, while along the horizon might be seen the dim curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw up.  Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City had thrown out a long brick-feeler here and there, curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last the little cottages had been gripped round by these red tentacles, and had been absorbed to make room for the modern villa.  Field by field the estate of old Mr. Williams had been sold to the speculative builder, and had borne rich crops of snug suburban dwellings, arranged in curving crescents and tree-lined avenues.  The father had passed away before his cottage was entirely bricked round, but his two daughters, to whom the property had descended, lived to see the last vestige of country taken from them.  For years they had clung to the one field which faced their windows, and it was only after much argument and many heartburnings, that they had at last consented that it should share the fate of the others.  A broad road was driven through their quiet domain, the quarter was re-named “The Wilderness,” and three square, staring, uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the other side.  With sore hearts, the two shy little old maids watched their steady progress, and speculated as to what fashion of neighbors chance would bring into the little nook which had always been their own.