From long residence in Bohemia, and fatal love of bachelor ease and habits, Master Philip’s pure tastes were so destroyed, and his manners so perverted, that he was actually indifferent to the pleasures of the refined home we have just been describing; and, when Agnes was away, sometimes even when she was at home, was quite relieved to get out of Beaunash Street. He is hardly twenty yards from the door, when out of his pocket there comes a case; out of the case there jumps an aromatic cigar, which is scattering fragrance around as he is marching briskly northwards to his next house of call.

The pace is even more lively now than when he is hastening on what you call the wings of love to Beaunash Street. At the house whither he is now going, he and the cigar are always welcome. There is no need of munching orange chips, or chewing scented pills　Don’t your speeches of ten years ago — maimed, distorted, bloated, or flinging your weed away half a mile before you reach Thornhaugh Street — the low, vulgar place. I promise you Phil may smoke at Brandon’s , and find others doing the same. He may set the house on fire, if so minded, such a favourite is he there; and the Little Sister, with her kind, beaming smile, will be there to bid him welcome. How that woman loved Phil, and how he loved her, is quite a curiosity; and both of them used to be twitted with this attachment by their , and blush as they acknowledged it.

Ever since the little nurse had saved his life as a schoolboy, it was à la vie à la mort between them. Phil’s father’s chariot used to come to Thornhaugh Street sometimes — at rare times — and the doctor descend thence and have colloquies with the Little Sister. She attended a patient or two of his. She was certainly very much better off in her money matters in these late years, since she had known Dr. Firmin. Do you think she took money from him? As a novelist, who knows everything about his people, I am constrained to say, Yes. She took enough to pay some little bills of her weak-minded old father, and send the bailiff’s hand from his old collar.

But no more. “I think you owe him as much as that,” she said to the doctor. But as for compliments between them — “Dr. Firmin, I would die rather than be beholden to you for anything,” she said, with her little limbs all in a tremor, and her eyes flashing anger. “How dare you, sir, after old days, be a coward, and pay compliments to me; I will tell your son of you, sir!” and the little woman looked as if she could have stabbed the elderly libertine there as he stood. And he shrugged his handsome shoulders: blushed a little too, perhaps: gave her one of his darkling looks, and departed. She had believed him once. She had married him as she fancied. He had tired of her; forsaken her: left her — left her even without a name. She had not known his for long years after her trust and his deceit. “No, sir, I wouldn’t have your name now, not if it were a lord’s , I wouldn’t, and a coronet on your carriage. You are beneath me now, Mr. Brand Firmin!” she had said.