“And where might that be?”
“In Bailey-lane.”
“You know Mary?”
“Of course I do—or rather I did. I have not seen her for so long a time, not since Laura left the town in such a sudden and mysterious a manner.”
“Ah, Laura, of course you knew her. You will be surprised to learn that I met with her in London by the merest chance in the world.”
“And how was she looking?”
“So well, so beautiful, so grandly dressed, that at first I did not know her.”
“Then she’s cutting a dash in London—a big swell, I s’pose?”
“Yes, doing the trick somehow or other. How I can’t tell, that’s best known to herself.”
“Some people have the devil’s luck as well as their own. However, she was always a clever girl, and knew her way about as well as most persons. But I say, Charlie, is it true that Mrs. Maitland’s daughter, she whom young Gatliffe married, turned out to be the grand-daughter of a nobleman?”