At length, a sudden turn of the road revealed to our friends, who were sitting with their faces to the horses, the first distant curve of glow-worm-like lamps in the distance, and presently the great white invitations to “try warren’s,” or “day and martin’s blacking,” began to loom through the darkness of the dead walls of the outskirts of London. They were fast approaching the metropolis. The gaunt elms and leafless poplars presently became fewer, while castellated and sentry-box-looking summer-houses stood dark in the little paled-off gardens. At last the villas, and semi-detached villas, collapsed into one continuous gas-lit shop-dotted street. The shops soon became better and more frequent,—more ribbons and flowers, and fewer periwinkle stalls. They now got upon the stones. Billy’s heart jumped into his month at the jerk, for he knew not how soon his charmer and he might part, and as yet he had not even ascertained her locality. Now or never, thought he, rising to the occasion, and, with difficulty of utterance, he expressed a hope that he might have the pleasure of seeing her ‘ome.
“Thank you, _no_,” replied Miss Willing, emphatically, for it was just the very thing she most dreaded, letting him see her reception by the servants.
“Humph!” grunted Billy, feeling his funds fall five-and-twenty per cent.—“Miss Titterton or Miss Bowerbank over again,” thought he.
“Not but that I most fully appreciate your kindness,” whispered Miss Willing, in the sweetest tone possible, right into his ear, thinking by Billy’s silence that her vehemence had offended him; “but,” continued she, “I’m only going to the house of a friend, a long way from you, and I expect a servant to meet me at the Green Man in Oxford Street.”
“Well, but let me see you to the”—(puff, gasp)—“Green Man,” ejaculated Billy, the funds of hope rising more rapidly than his words.
“It’s very kind,” whispered Miss Willing, “and I feel it _very, very_ much, but”—
“But if your servant shouldn’t come,” interrupted Billy, “you’d never find your way to Brompton in this nasty dense yellow fog,” for they had now got into the thick of a fine fat one.
“Oh, but I’m not going to Brompton,” exclaimed Miss Willing, amused at this second bad shot of Billy’s at her abode.