“You are a very independent little lady!” he said—­“But—­just in case you ever do want to read a book of mine,—­I am going to give you my name and address.”  Here he took a card from his waistcoat pocket and gave it to her.  “That will always find me,” he continued—­“Don’t be afraid to write and ask me anything about London you may wish to know.  It’s a very large city—­a cruel one!”—­and he looked at her with compassionate kindness—­“You mustn’t lose yourself in it!”

She read the name on the card—­“John Harrington”—­and the address was the office of a famous daily journal.  Looking up, she gave him a grateful little smile.

“You are very kind!” she said—­“And I will not forget you.  I don’t think I shall lose myself—­I’ll try not to be so stupid!  Yes—­when I have read one of your books I will write to you!”

“Do!”—­and there was almost a note of eagerness in his voice—­“I should like to know what you think”—­here a loud and persistent scream from the engine-whistle drowned all possibility of speech as the train rushed past a bewildering wilderness of houses packed close together under bristling black chimneys—­then, as the deafening din ceased, he added, quietly, “Here is London.”

She looked out of the window,—­the sun was shining, but through a dull brown mist, and nothing but bricks and mortar, building upon building, met her view.  After the sweet freshness of the country she had left behind, the scene was appallingly hideous, and her heart sank with a sense of fear and foreboding.  Another few minutes and the train stopped.

“This is Paddington,” said John Harrington; then, noting her troubled expression—­“Let me get a taxi for you and tell the man where to drive.”

She submitted in a kind of stunned bewilderment.  The address she had found in the “Morning Post” was her rescue—­she could go there, she thought, rapidly, even if she had to come away again.  Almost before she could realise what had happened in all the noise and bustling to and fro, she found herself in a taxi-cab, and her kind fellow-traveller standing beside it, raising his hat to her courteously in farewell.  She gave him the address of the house in Kensington which she had copied from the advertisement she had seen in the “Morning Post,” and he repeated it to the taxi-driver with a sense of relief and pleasure.  It was what is called “a respectable address”—­and he was glad the child knew where she was going.  In another moment the taxi was off,—­a parting smile brightened the wistful expression of her young face, and she waved her little hand to him.  And then she was whirled away among the seething crowd of vehicles and lost to sight.  Old John Harrington stood for a moment on the railway-platform, lost in thought.

“A sweet little soul!” he mused—­“I wonder what will become of her!  I must see her again some day.  She reminds me of—­let me see!—­who does she remind me of?  By Jove, I have it!  Pierce Armitage!—­haven’t seen him for twenty years at least—­and this girl’s face has a look of his—­just the same eyes and intense expression.  Poor old Armitage!—­he promised to be a great artist once, but he’s gone to the dogs by this time, I suppose.  Curious, curious that I should remember him just now!”