"Please, ma'am," he said, "I've come with a message from Mr. Tracy, which is in Newgate. He is a wery nice gen'leman, and is certain sure to be hung, they say."
"Who are you?" demanded Cecilia, with ill-concealed disgust.
"Please, ma'am, I belong to an eating-house in the Old Bailey," returned the boy; "and I takes in Mr. Tracy's meals to him."
"And what do you want with me?"
"Please, ma'am, Mr. Tracy says will you go and see him to-morrow morning between ten and eleven?"
"In Newgate!" ejaculated Lady Cecilia, with an unaffected shudder.
"Oh! yes, ma'am: I goes in there three times every day o' my life; and so I'm sure you needn't be afraid to wisit it just for vonce."
"Well—I will think of it. Have you any thing else to say to me?"
"Please, ma'am, Mr. Tracy says that you've no call to give your own name at the gate; but if you pass yourself off as his sister, just come up from the country, you can see him alone in his cell. But if you don't do that you'd on'y be allowed to speak to him through the bars of his yard. He would have wrote to you, but then the letters must be read by the governor before they goes out; and so it would have been known that he sent to you. He never thought of speaking about it to me till this morning; and I promised to do his arrand faithful. That's all, ma'am."
"And enough too," said Lady Cecilia, in a tone of deep disgust, as she threw the lad a few shillings across the table in the room where she received him.