by a returning invasion of children in
the hall. There was whispering; there was giggling; there was, every now
and then, a loud thump on the door. Prompted by the children, as I
suppose--pushed in by them, certainly--the maid suddenly reappeared with
a jerk, "Oh, if you please, come this way," she said. The invasion of
children retreated again up the stairs--one of them in possession of my
card, and waving it in triumph on the first landing. We penetrated to the
other end of the passage. Again, a door was opened. Unannounced, I
entered another, and a larger room. What did I see?

Fortune had favored me at last. My lucky star had led me to the mistress
of the house.

I made my best curtsey, and found myself confronting a large,
light-haired, languid, lymphatic lady--who had evidently been amusing
herself by walking up and down the room, at the moment when I appeared.
If there can be such a thing as a _damp woman_--this was one. There was a
humid shine on her colorless white face, and an overflow of water in her
pale blue eyes. Her hair was not dressed; and her lace cap was all on one
side. The upper part of her was clothed in a loose jacket of blue merino;
the lower part was robed in a dimity dressing gown of doubtful white. In
one hand, she held a dirty dogs'-eared book, which I at once detected to
be a Circulating Library novel. Her other hand supported a baby enveloped
in flannel, sucking at her breast. Such was my first experience of
Reverend Finch's Wife--destined to be also the experience of all
aftertime. Never completely dressed; never completely dry; always with a
baby in one hand and a novel in the other--such was Finch's wife.

"Oh! Madame Pratolungo? Yes. I hope somebody has told Miss Finch you are
here. She has her own establishment, and manages everything herself. Have
you had a pleasant journey?" (These words were spoken vacantly, as if her
mind was occupied with something else. My first impression of her
suggested that she was a weak, good-natured woman, and that she must have
originally occupied a station in the humbler ranks of life.)

"Thank you, Mrs. Finch," I said. "I have enjoyed most heartily my journey
among your beautiful hills."

"Oh! you like the hills? Excuse my dress. I was half an hour late this
morning. When you lose half an hour in this house, you never can pick it
up again, try how you may." (I soon discovered that Mrs. Finch was always
losing half an hour out of her day, and that s