"Then you think Verschoyle is Ventin?"
"Yes, I think so; but I will be certain to-morrow."
"Oh! in what way?"
"Mrs. Taunton is going to show me her brother's portrait."
"And then?"
"Well," observed Monteith, "if it is Ventin as I suspect, I think it will be the beginning of the end."
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE MISSING LINK.
What queer old places there are in Brocade Street--why, the very name is suggestive of the stately times of the early Georges, and indeed, Brocade Street was a fashionable locality even earlier, when Queen Anne was ruling, and Marlborough was winning his brilliant victories, and Duchess Sarah was alternately bullying and coaxing her weak-minded mistress. A dark, narrow street with tall houses of red brick on either side, innumerable windows, and heavy-looking doors which had often opened to let out Belinda to her sedan-chair, or Sir Plume on the way to Wills, to have a chat with Sterne and Addison.
Fancy Swift, with his dark, lowering face, walking down this street with his thoughts fixed upon a possible bishopric, or Dick Steele, swaggering along in his rich dress, stopping to take off his hat to Lady Betty Modish, who looked archly at him through the window. And then, at night, when all the streets were in darkness, save for the link boys, poor lost Richard Savage wandering about in company with Samuel Johnson even at that early age burly and contradictory. Ah, yes; great spirits were abroad in those stirring times, and Brocade Street could tell a few stories of interest, had it a voice; but now the tide of fashion had rolled westward, and the street was left silent and lonely to think over its past glories.