It was dusk when we got to Putney. We had left all our heavy baggage, to be sent up after us when we should have got into a house, and had brought up only what we should require for the present. We got into one of the rickety-looking flies standing at the station, and told the man to drive us to No. 12, Charlemagne Villas. We were soon there, and in the uncertain light we could see that it was a little detached house standing in a garden, and cut off from its neighbours and the road by a wall.
The driver got down and rang at the bell, and the gate, or rather the door in the wall, was opened by a small servant-girl.
"Does Mrs. Thompson live here?"
"Yes, ma'am; will you walk in?"
Very pleased to find that the object of our search still lived there, Polly and I got out of the fly and went in; while Harry, who said he hated this sort of thing, stopped outside to look after the boxes.
We were shown into a pretty little drawing-room, where the servant drew down the blind and lighted the gas, and in a minute or two a brisk little woman came in and said—
"My name is Thompson, ma'am; did you wish to see me?"
"Yes, Mrs. Thompson: some four years ago I was at Ramsgate, and when there I struck up a great acquaintance with your mother. She gave me your address, and I said that if ever I came to London I would come to you. Do you still let lodgings, and are they vacant?"
"I do, ma'am," Mrs. Thompson said, "and shall be only too glad to let them to any one whom mother recommended them to. If you had come two months later I might have been full, but my season does not begin till April, so we are quite empty at present."
A bargain was soon made with her, and Mrs. Thompson went to the top of the stairs and called "Mother," and, to my great surprise, the old bathing-woman herself came up. She knew me at once.