think the matter over she was faced by a new difficulty. On the
occasion of her only visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, she and Evelina had
suffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramy; and Ann Eliza now
perceived that she did not even know the name of the laundress's
suburb, much less that of the street in which she lived. But she
must have news of Evelina, and no obstacle was great enough to
thwart her.

Though she longed to turn to some one for advice she disliked
to expose her situation to Miss Mellins's searching eye, and at
first she could think of no other confidant. Then she remembered
Mrs. Hawkins, or rather her husband, who, though Ann Eliza had
always thought him a dull uneducated man, was probably gifted with
the mysterious masculine faculty of finding out people's addresses.
It went hard with Ann Eliza to trust her secret even to the mild
ear of Mrs. Hawkins, but at least she was spared the cross-
examination to which the dress-maker would have subjected her. The
accumulating pressure of domestic cares had so crushed in Mrs.
Hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others that she
received her visitor's confidence with an almost masculine
indifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm and
with the other tried to check the acrobatic impulses of the next in
age.

"My, my," she simply said as Ann Eliza ended. "Keep still
now, Arthur: Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on her
foot to-day. And what are you gaping at, Johnny? Run right off
and play," she added, turning sternly to her eldest, who, because
he was the least naughty, usually bore the brunt of her wrath
against the others.