Chapter 11

The Night of Adventures.

A cold March wind whistled and yelled round the twisted chimneys of the Hit or Miss. The day had been a trial to every sense. First there would come a long-drawn distant moan, a sigh like that of a querulous woman; then the sigh grew nearer and became a shriek, as if the same woman were working herself up into a passion; and finally a gust of rainy hail, mixed with dust and small stones, was dashed, like a parting insult, on the windows of the Hit or Miss.

Then the shriek died away again into a wail and a moan, and so da capo.

"Well, Eliza, what do you do now that the pantomime season is over?" said Barton to Miss Gullick, who was busily dressing a doll, as she perched on the table in the parlor of the Hit or Miss.

Barton occasionally looked into the public-house, partly to see that Maitland's investment was properly managed, partly because the place was near the scene of his labors; not least, perhaps, because he had still an unacknowledged hope that light on the mystery of Margaret would come from the original centre of the troubles.

"I'm in no hurry to take an engagement," answered the resolute Eliza, holding up and examining her doll. It was a fashionable doll, in a close-fitting tweed ulster, which covered a perfect panoply of other female furniture, all in the latest mode. As the child worked, she looked now and then at the illustrations in a journal of the fashions. "There's two or three managers in treaty with me," said Eliza. "There's the Follies and Frivolities down Norwood way, and the Varieties in the 'Ammersmith Road. Thirty shillings a week and my dresses, that's what I ask for, and I'll get it too! Just now I'm taking a vacation, and making an honest penny with these things," and she nodded at a little basket full of the wardrobe of dolls.

"Do you sell the dresses to the toy-shops, Eliza?" asked Barton.

"Yes," said Eliza; "I am doing well with them. I'm not sure I shan't need to take on some extra hands, by the job, to finish my Easter orders."

"Pm glad you are successful," answered Barton. "I say, Eliza!"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Would you mind showing me the room up-stairs where poor old Shields was sitting the night before he was found in the snow?"

It had suddenly occurred to Barton--it might have occurred to him before--that this room might be worth examining.

"We ain't using it now! Ill show you it," said Eliza, leading the way up-stairs, and pointing to a door.

Barton took hold of the handle.

"Ladies first," he said, making way for Eliza, with a bow.

"No," came the child's voice, from half-way down the stairs; "I won't come in! They say he walks, I've heard noises there at night."

A cold