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I have said that Miss Caroline had no friend in the world except her father, but one friend she most certainly had, and that was honest Becky, the smutty maid, whose name has been mentioned before. A great comfort it was for Caroline to descend to the calm kitchen from the stormy back-parlour, and there vent some of her little woes to the compassionate servant of all work.

When Mrs. Gann went out with her daughters Becky would take her work and come and keep Miss Caroline company; and, if the truth must be told, the greatest enjoyment the pair used to have was in these afternoons, when they read together out of the precious, greasy, marble-covered volumes that Mrs. Gann was in the habit of fetching from the library. Many and many a tale had the pair so gone through. I can see them over “Manfrone; or the One-handed Monk,” the room dark, the street silent, the hour ten, the tall, red, lurid candlewick waggling down, the flame flickering pale upon Miss Caroline’s pale face as she read out, and lighting up honest Becky’s goggling eyes, who sat silent, her work in her lap; she had not done a stitch of it for an hour. As the trapdoor slowly opens, and the scowling Alonzo, bending over the sleeping Imoinda, draws his pistol, cocks it, looks well if the priming be right, places it then to the sleeper’s ear, and– thunder under-under –down fall the snuffers! Becky has had them in her hand for ten minutes, afraid to use them. Up starts Caroline and flings the book back into mamma’s basket. It is only that lady returned with her daughters from a tea-party, where they have been enjoying themselves.

For the sentimental, too, as well as the terrible, Miss Caroline and the cook had a strong predilection, and had wept their poor eyes out over “Thaddeus of Warsaw” and the “Scottish Chiefs.” Fortified by the examples drawn from those instructive volumes, Becky was firmly convinced that her young mistress would meet with a great lord some day or other, or be carried off, like Cinderella, by a brilliant prince, to the mortification of her elder sisters, whom Becky hated.

When, therefore, a new lodger came, lonely, mysterious, melancholy, elegant, with the romantic name of George Brandon–when he actually wrote a letter directed to a lord, and Miss Caroline and Becky together examined the superscription, Becky’s eyes were lighted up with a preternatural look of wondering wisdom; whereas, after an instant, Caroline dropped hers, and blushed and said, “Nonsense, Becky!”

“Is it nonsense?” said Becky, grinning, and snapping her fingers with a triumphant air; “the cards come true; I knew they would. Didn’t you have a king and queen of hearts three deals running? What did you dream about last Tuesday, tell me that?”

But Miss Caroline never did tell, for just then her sisters came bouncing down the stairs, and examined the lodger’s letter. Caroline, however, went away musing much upon these points; and she began to think Mr. Brandon more wonderful and beautiful every day, whereas he was remarkable for nothing except very black eyes, a sallow face, and a habit of smoking cigars in bed till noon. His name of George Brandon was only an assumed one. He was really the son of a half-pay Colonel, of good family, who had been sent to Eton to acquire an education. From Eton he went to Oxford, took honours there, but ran up bills amounting to two thousand pounds. Then there came fury on the part of his stern old “governor”; and final payment of the debt, but while this settlement was pending Master George had contracted many more debts and was glad to fly to the Continent as tutor to young Lord Cinqbars, and afterwards went into retirement at Margate until his father’s wrath should be appeased. For that reason we find him a member of the Gann establishment, flirting when occasion seemed to demand it with mother and daughters, and taking occasional notice of little Caroline, who frequently broiled his cutlets.