At last came the night which Harry¹ had fixed² for his visit to Bolton Street. He had looked forward certainly with no pleasure to the interview, and now that the time for it had come, was disposed to think that Lady Ongar had been unwise in asking for it. But he had promised that he would go, and there was no possible escape.

He dined that evening in Onslow Crescent, where he was now again established with all his old comfort. He had again gone up to the children's nursery with Cecilia, had kissed them all in their cots, and made himself quite at home in the establishment. It was with them there as though there had been no dreadful dream about Lady Ongar. It was so altogether with Cecilia and Florence, and even Mr. Burton was allowing himself to be brought round to a charitable view of Harry's character. Harry on this day had gone to the chambers³ in the Adelphi for an hour, and walking away with Theodore Burton had declared his intention of working like a horse. "If you were to say like a man, it would perhaps be better," said Burton. "I must leave you to say that," answered Harry; "for the present I will content myself with the horse." Burton was willing to hope, and allowed himself once more to fall into his old pleasant way of talking about the business as though there were no other subject under the sun so full of manifold interest. He was very keen at the present moment about Metropolitan⁴ railways, and was ridiculing⁵ the folly⁶ of those who feared that the railway projectors⁷ were going too fast. "But we shall never get any thanks," he said. "When the thing has been done, and thanks are our due, people will look upon all our work so much as a matter of course that it will never occur to them to think that they owe us anything. They will have forgotten all their cautions, and will take what they get as though it were simply their due. Nothing astonishes me so much as the fear people feel before a thing is done when I join it with their want of surprise or

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