chambers, which are nearly opposite this house. In my excitement, I could not find them for some time, and we wandered about the Temple for, I should think, a quarter of an hour, before we found Garden Court; and when at length we did find it, we discovered to our great sorrow, that his chambers were closed, and a notice posted on his door to the effect that he had gone out of town for a week. I heard my husband's voice in the immediate neighbourhood, and seeing only one window with a light in it (owing, I suppose, to its being Christmas-day), my daughter and I made our way to it as quickly as we could, and effected the unceremonious entrance for which we have to offer you our humblest apologies."
"If your story is true," said Maxwell, "(and I see no reason to doubt it), you shall have an asylum here until we can place you beyond the reach of your husband's violence. But you are wet through. How in the world are we to remedy that?"
"I have it," said I. "I'll run round to Mrs. Decks, and get a change of some kind for these ladies,"
Mrs. Decks was one of that remarkable and much-abused class of women, the Temple laundresses. She was a pleasant, cheery little old woman, with a quiet chirruping voice, and so big a heart, that you wondered how she could find room for it in her particularly little body. She had "done for" us during the three years we had lived in the Temple, and had nursed me through two severe illnesses. She was our adviser in all circumstances of social difficulty, and the present embarrassment appeared to be, pre-eminently, a case for her
