common fate had pressed them hard. Her parents were dead, and her husband and her first-born children. He, on his side, had lost his mother and his wife. They matched bereavements and compared bruises, and in the way she expressed herself there was a charm which forced him, as he wondered, to remember that Fanny Knocker had at least been intelligent.
"I wish I could have seen your wife—you must tell me all about her," she said. "Haven't you some portraits?"
"Some poor little photographs. I'll show them to you. She was very pretty and very gentle; she was also very un-English. But she only lived a year. She wasn't clever and accomplished like you."
"Ah, me; you don't know me!"
"No, but I want to—oh, particularly. I'm prepared to give a good deal of time to the study."
"We must be friends," said Mrs. Tregent. "I shall take an extraordinary interest in your daughter."
"She'll be grateful for it. She's a good
