the road, spoke of the recent sale. A notice, to the effect that the eligible premises (adapted for a lodging-house) were to let, and that application might be made to the housekeeper within, or to Messrs. Puddick and Crowby, auctioneers and estate agents, in Catherine Street, Strand, adorned the parlour window.
We made application to the housekeeper, as advised, believing that she would be more likely to give us information about Mrs. Talboys' movements, than Messrs. Puddick and Crowby. However, she turned out to be a sodden old lady, who knew nothing more of Mrs. Talboys, except that she was a precious bad lot, as ought to be rope-ended if all on us had their jew. No, she didn't know nothing about no addresses—Mrs. T. took precious good care as nobody should—and for a good reason, too.
We left this impracticable old female in depressed spirits, and turned our attention to Chester generally. We sent carefully-worded advertisements to the Times and to the Chester papers; and Maxwell wrote a long letter to Mrs. Talboys, Post-Office, Chester, begging her to afford us some information as to her proposed movements, if she objected to telling us her address.
Day after day elapsed, but no letter came to us from Mrs. Talboys. I will not attempt to paint my intense grief at losing my little Emmie. Suffice it to say, that, after six weeks' interval of mental depression, which seriously affected my powers as a writer of light literature, I began to recover my usual spirits, and, excepting that I could never make up my mind to leave the Temple at the Essex Gate, or to look down Essex
