"What shall we do?" asked Betty, feeling that she had earned a right to couple herself with Hamilton and me by the pronoun "we."
"I'll go to see Lilly," said Hamilton. "He lives in the Strand, not far from Temple Bar."
"He will tell us where Frances is and how to find her. Will you go with me?" asked Hamilton.
"Certainly," I responded, though I considered the visit a waste of time.
"May I, too, go?" asked Betty, with the double motive, doubtless, of helping and seeing. Lilly, engaged in his incantations, would be an inspiring sight to her.
"No, no, you may not go with us," answered Hamilton.
Betty's eyes looked up to me entreatingly, so I took up her cause, and suggested:--
"Lilly may want to question her about what the girl said."
"You are right," returned George. "Wrap yourself up well, Betty, and come along. We'll take a coach to Lilly's."
A porter soon brought us a coach, and Betty, having explained to her father where and why she was going, climbed in with George and me, and we were off.
We found Lilly at home, eager to help us. He asked many questions relating to my cousin's life and her friends at court, to all of which I made full answer in so far as I knew, including an account of the king's objectionable attentions. I suspected that the Doctor would make more use of the knowledge he obtained from me than of that to be received from the stars, but I did not care how he reached his conclusions if he could but tell us how and where to find Frances.
Lilly questioned Betty also, and when he had learned all that she knew, he left us seated in the parlor while he went to his observatory to set a figure. In the course of ten minutes he returned and gave us the result of his calculations, as follows:--
"I believe I can tell you where Mistress Jennings is, and how she may be found," he said, speaking and acting as one walking in sleep. "But your failure to tell me the exact hour of her birth lends uncertainty to my calculations. I have all the particulars concerning the nativity of a man whom I shall not name. I have read the stars many times for him and on many subjects. If he is connected with the disappearance of Mistress Jennings, you will find her at a place called Merlin House, six leagues from Westminster and half a league from the Oxford Road."