Begins with Love, Hope, and Joy, and ends Peculiarly.  
It may not perhaps surprise the reader to learn that after Lilly Blythe’s return to town, I did not prosecute my studies with as much enthusiasm as before. In fact I divided my attentions pretty equally between Lilly and chemistry.
 
Now, I am not prone to become sentimentally talkative about my own affairs, but as courtship, and love, and that sort of thing are undoubted and important elements in the chemistry of human affairs, and as they influenced me and those around me to some extent, I cannot avoid making reference to them, but I promise the reader to do so only as far as appears necessary for the elucidation of my story.
 
First, then, although I knew that my prospects of success as a partner of Dr McTougall were most encouraging, I felt that it would be foolish to think of marriage until my position was well established and my income adequate. I therefore strove with all my might to check the flow of my thoughts towards Miss Blythe. As well might I have striven to restrain the flow of Niagara. True love cannot be stemmed! In my case, however, the proverb was utterly falsified, for my true love did “run smooth.” More than that, it ran fast—very fast indeed, so much so that I was carried, as it were, on the summit of a rushing flood-tide into the placid harbour of Engagement. The anchorage in that harbour is with many people uncertain. With Lilly and me it was not so. The ground-tackle was good; it had caught hold of a rock and held on.
 
It happened thus. After many weeks of struggling on my part to keep out of Miss Blythe’s way, and to prevent the state of my feelings from being observed by her—struggles which I afterwards found to my confusion had been quite obvious to her—I found myself standing alone, one Sunday afternoon, in the doctor’s drawing-room, meditating on the joys of childhood, as exemplified by thunderous blows on the floor above and piercing shouts of laughter. The children had been to church and were working off the steam accumulated there. Suddenly there was a dead silence, which I knew to be the result of a meal. The meal was, I may add, the union of a late dinner with an early tea. It was characteristic of Sundays in the McTougall nursery.
 
The thought of this union turned my mind into another channel. Just then Miss Blythe entered. She looked so radiant that I forgot myself, forgot my former struggles, my good resolutions—everything except herself—and proposed on the spot!
 
I was rejected—of course! More than that, I was stunned! Hope had told me many flattering tales. Indeed, I had felt so sure, from many little symptoms, that Lilly had a strong regard for me—to say the least—that I was overwhelmed, not only by my rejection, but by the thought of my foolish self-assurance.
 
“I don’t wonder that you look upon me as a presumptuous, vain, contemptible fellow,” said I, in the bitterness of my soul.
 
“But I do not regard you in that light,” said Lilly, with a faint smile, and then, hesitatingly, she looked down at the carpet.
 
“In what light do you regard me, Miss Blythe?” said I, recovering a little hope, and speaking vehemently.
 
“Really, Dr Mellon, you take me by surprise; your manner—so abrupt—so—”
 
“Oh! never mind manner, dear Miss Blythe,” said I, seizing her hand, and forcibly detaining it. “You are the soul of truth; tell me, is there any hope for me?—can you care for me?”
 
“Dr Mellon,” she said, drawing her hand firmly away, “I cannot, should not reply. You do not know all the—the circumstances of my life—my poverty, my solitary condition in the world—my—my—”
 
“Miss Blythe,” I exclaimed, in desperation, “if you were as poor as a—a—church rat, as solitary as—as—Adam before the advent of Eve, I would count it my chief joy, and—”
 
“Hallo! Mellon, hi! I say! where are you?” shouted the voice of the doctor at that moment from below stairs. “Here’s Dumps been in the laboratory, and capsized some of the chemicals!”
 
“Coming, sir!” I shouted; then tenderly, though hurriedly, to Miss Blythe, “You will let me resume this subject at—”
 
“Hallo! look sharp!” from below.
 
“Yes, yes, I’ll be down directly!—Dear Miss Blythe, if you only knew—”
 
“Why, the dog’s burning all over—help me!” roared the doctor.
 
Miss Blythe blushed and laughed. How could she help it? I hastily kissed her hand, and fled from the room.
 
That was the whole affair. There was not enough, strictly speaking, to form a ground of hope; but somehow I knew that it was all right. In the laboratory I found Dumps smoking, and the doctor pouring water from the tap on his dishevelled body. He was not hurt, and little damage was done; but as I sat in my room talking to him that evening, I could not help reproaching him with having been the means of breaking off one of the most important interviews of my life.
 
“However, Dumps,” I continued, “your good services far outweigh your wicked deeds, and whatever you may do in the future, I will never forget that you were the means of introducing me to that angel, Lilly Blythe.”
 
The angel in question went that Sunday evening at seven o’clock, as was her wont, to a Bible class which she had started for the instruction of some of the poor neglected boys and lads who idled about in the dreary back streets of our aristocratic neighbourhood. The boys had become so fond of her that they were eager to attend, and usually assembled round the door of the class-room before the hour.
 
My protégé, Robin Slidder, was of course one of her warmest adherents. He was standing that night apart from the other boys, contemplating the proceedings of two combative sparrows which quarrelled over a crumb of bread on the pavement, and had just come to the conclusion that men and sparrows had some qualities in common, when he was attracted by a low whistle, and, looking up, beheld the Slogger peeping round a neighbouring corner.
 
“Hallo! Slog—Villum I mean; how are you? Come along. Vell, I am glad to see you, for, d’you know, arter you failed me that day at the Black Bull, I have bin givin’ you a pretty bad character, an’ callin’ you no end o’ bad names.”
 
“Is that what your ‘angel’ teaches you, Robin?”
 
“Vell, not exactly, but you’ll hear wot she teaches for yourself to-night, I ’ope. Come, I’m right glad to see you, Villum. What was it that prevented you that day, eh?”
 
When the Slogger had explained and cleared his character, Robin asked him eagerly if he had ascertained anything further about the girl whom he and Brassey had robbed.
 
“Of course I have,” said the Slogger, “and it’s a curious suckumstance that ’er place of abode—so Sally says—is in the Vest End, not wery far from here. She gave me the street and the name, but wasn’t quite sure of the number.”
 
“Vell, come along, let’s hear all about it,” said Robin impatiently.
 
“Wy, wot’s all your ’urry?” returned the Slogger slowly; “I ain’t goin’ away till I’ve heerd wot your angel’s got to say, you know. Besides, I must go arter your meeting’s over an watch the ’ouse till I see the gal an’ make sure that it’s her, for Sally may have bin mistook, you know.”
 
“You don’t know her name, do you?” asked Robin; “it wasn’t Edie Willis, now, was it?”
 
“’Ow should............