“Being with Miss Deveen, sir, I don’t suppose I shall have the opportunity of getting into much harm.”
“Well, it’s right in me to caution you, Johnny. London is a dreadful place, full of sharpers and bad people. It used to be in the old days, and I don’t suppose it has improved in these. You have no father, Johnny, and I stand to you in the light of one, to give you these warnings. Enjoy your visit rationally, my boy, and come home with a true report and a good conscience. That’s the charge my old father always gave to me.”
Miss Deveen lived in a very nice house, north-westward, away from the bustle of London. The road was wide, the houses were semi-detached, with gardens around and plenty of trees in view. Somehow I had hoped Tod would be at the Paddington terminus, and was disappointed, so I took a cab and went on. Miss Deveen came into the hall to receive me, and said she did not consider me too big to be kissed, considering she was over sixty. Miss Cattledon, sitting in the drawing-room, gave me a finger to shake, and did not seem to like my coming. Her waist and throat were thinner and longer than ever; her stays creaked like parchment.
If I’d never had a surprise in my life, I had one before I was in the house an hour. Coming down from the bedroom to which they had shown me, a maid-servant passed me on the first-floor landing. It was Lettice Lane! I wondered—believe me or not, as you will—I wondered whether I saw a ghost, and stood back against the pillar of the banisters.
“Why, Lettice, is it you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But—what are you doing here?”
“I am here in service, sir.”
She ran on upstairs. Lettice in Miss Deveen’s house. It was worse than a Chinese puzzle.
“Is that you, Johnny? Step in here?”