because there is nothing naturally confusing in a Fountain. We all know that.

"What a good old place it was!' John said. With quite an earnest affection for it.

"A pleasant place, indeed,' said little Ruth. 'So shady!'

"Oh wicked little Ruth!

"They came to a stop when John began to praise it. The day was exquisite; and stopping at all, it was quite natural — nothing could be more so that they should glance down Garden Court; because Garden Court ends in the Garden, and the Garden ends in the River, and that glimpse is very bright and fresh and shining on a summer's day. Then, oh little Ruth, why not look boldly at it! Why fit that tiny, precious, blessed little foot into the cracked corner of an insensible old flagstone in the pavement; and be so very anxious to adjust it to a nicety!"

And so the story goes on; the two walking side by side in search of Tom, until: "They had reached their destination. She never could have gone any further. It would have been impossible to walk in such a tremble.

"Tom had not come in. They entered the triangular parlour together, and alone. "She sat down on the little sofa, and untied

...

her bonnet-strings. He sat down by her side, and very near her: very, very near her. Oh, rapid, swelling, bursting little heart, you knew that it would come to this, and hoped it would. Why beat so wildly, heart!

"Dear Ruth! Sweet Ruth! If I had loved you less, I could have told you that I loved you, long ago. I have loved you from the first. There never was a creature in the world more truly loved than you, dear Ruth, by me!'

"She clasped her little hands before her face. The gushing tears of joy, and pride, and hope, and innocent affection, would not be restrained. Fresh from her full young heart they came to answer him.

"My dear love! If this is: I almost dare to hope it is, now: not painful or distressing to you, you make me happier than I can tell you, or you imagine. Darling Ruth!' . . . The soft, light touch fell coyly, but quite naturally, upon the lover's shoulder; the delicate waist, the drooping head, the blushing cheek, the beautiful eyes, the exquisite little mouth itself, were all as natural as possible."

CHAPTER X

JOHN FORSTER'S HOUSE AT NO. 58 LIN. COLN'S INN FIELDS

ERE it was that Mr. Dickens for the first time read "The Chimes," - and in that very room behind the window-panes seen in my sketch; and behind the same panes, no doubt, if one can judge from the purple tones in the wavy glass which only great age can give. Here Mr. Tulkinghorn defied the Frenchwoman; here he plotted against Lady Dedlock, and here he was found one morning "lying face down on the floor, shot through the heart.' And here, to-day, true to its traditions it is still a mansion "let off in sets of chambers," where, to quote the author of "Bleak House," "lawyers lie like maggots in nuts.”

"

And many of the near-by dwellings famous in the old days still remain intact, their only signs of decrepitude being those that the years of mould and smoke produce. Newcastle House, the residence of the great Duke of Newcastle, built by Inigo Jones in 1686, still stands erect in its impressive aloofness; Lindsay House, the home of the Earl of Lindsay,

that dates from 1668, shows almost the same façade given in an old print. Many others, too, on the west and south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields still retain all their old-time dignity.

The Square itself, once a wide-open common where in 1683 Lord Russell was executed for a crime he did not commit, has boasted a fence since 1735, and to-day is one of the largest and best-shaded squares in London, due, no doubt, to the fines and penalties heaped upon the heads of the offender who violated the rules governing its seclusion, as is proved by a proclamation dated 1805, a facsimile of which is herewith reproduced. The original was the property of an old fellow, the proprietor of a near-by public house, a friend of my cabby who, while I was at work, regaled both the cabby and the horse within its bar and stable.

I can understand now, with the document before me, why other sections of the Temple like Fountain Court - still preserve their rest and solitude. What would have happened had I defied all the rules and attempted to work around the Fountain without a permit, it is impossible to imagine. But all doubts would have been solved had I tried it in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1805.

And a great Square it was in its day - this famous West End of London, and a great

people lived and played their parts within its confines. Nell Gwynne entranced her audiences at the Duke's Theatre, Portugal Row; Betterton acted in "Hamlet" (this in 1662), bringing fame and fortune to the company; Opie (1791) painted portraits in one of the great houses on the south side not far from the theatre, the carriages of his patrons, so great was his popularity, blocking up the street; Congreve's "Love for Love" (1695) was played for the first time with Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelica, and thirty years later, "The Beggar's Opera," with Lavinia Fenton so bewitching as Polly Peacham that she carried by storm the heart of the Duke of Bolton and became his Duchess; an outcome, the scribe remarks, by no means unusual in our day. And in this same theatre Pepys was so vastly amused that he went as often as he could in order to make Mrs. Pepys "as mad as the devil," an occupation which, if we may believe his chronicle, filled the larger part of his waking hours.

But it is with the year 1844, when "The Chimes" first saw the light, and ten years later, when "Bleak House" was published, that I have now to do.

Forster tells of his receiving a letter from