MILLBANK The immediate neighbourhood of Millbank Penitentiary is not one which we should, for its own sake, choose for our residence, either on account of its natural beauty, or the excellence of its habitations.

That it is a salubrious locality must be presumed from the fact that it has been selected for the site of the institution in question; but salubrity, though doubtless a great recommendation, would hardly reconcile us to the extremely dull, and one might almost say, ugly aspect which this district bears.
To this district, however, ugly as it is, we must ask our readers to accompany us, while we pay a short visit to poor Gertrude.

It was certainly a sad change from her comfortable nursery and elegant drawing-room near Hyde Park.

Gertrude had hitherto never lived in an ugly house.

Surbiton Cottage and Albany Place were the only two homes that she remembered, and neither of them was such as to give her much fitting preparation for the melancholy shelter which she found at No.