"And yourself, sir? I fancy you have been looking up too, there's an air of success, of solid respectability, eh? worthy of a churchwarden, about you!"
"Yes, I may say I am now a sober citizen of famous London——"
"I believe you, and I am right glad to hear it. I shall yet salute you as Lord Mayor of London. 'Turn again Whittington,' hey? Where do you put up? I'll call and get you to fix a day to dine with us, but for the present I must bid you good-morning, for I promised to meet my daughter at the flower-market, and I never keep her waiting. Eh! by Jove, here she is."
Struck by the sudden joyous lighting up and softening of his interlocutor's eyes, Glynn turned to see the cause, and found himself face to face with the beauty of Auteuil.
Seldom had he been so surprised, and it must be confessed shocked, as when he saw this charming ideal creature smile back affectionately to the rowdy-looking nomad who claimed her as his child, whom he remembered as one of an adventurous gang, ready alike with dice-box or revolver, barely ten years ago.
"I thought you had forgotten me," she said, slipping her hand through his arm.
"Forgotten you? No, faith! you must blame my friend here, if I am a trifle late. This is an old acquaintance, my dear; we have faced death together more than once; and a better, pluckier comrade no man need wish for. Mr. Glynn—Miss Lambert."
Glynn raised his hat with profound respect.
"He has already befriended me," she returned, gazing at him with a pretty, surprised, bewildered look in her large eyes. "I should still have been waiting to cross there at Madeleine, had he not escorted me."
Lambert gave a quick, questioning glance at his daughter's open smiling face, and then exclaimed, "I am infinitely obliged to you, sir; infinitely, begad! I tell you what, Elsie, you mustn't be out so late in the day by yourself. Why don't you take the bonne with you, or wait till I come in."