ADRIFT Just before Christmas of 1887, a lady past her twenties, and with a look of discouraged weariness on her thin face, knocked at a house-door in a little street by Lavender Hill.

A card in the window gave notice that a bedroom was here to let.

When the door opened, and a clean, grave, elderly woman presented herself, the visitor, regarding her anxiously, made known that she was in search of a lodging.
'It may be for a few weeks only, or it may be for a longer period,' she said in a low, tired voice, with an accent of good breeding.

'I have a difficulty in finding precisely what I want.

One room would be sufficient, and I ask for very little attendance.' She had but one room to let, replied the other.