s certain to come some time or other to her, and she would
have liked to have made provision for it--a difficult matter for most of
us, and for her impossible. She was wise enough, even then, to know how
Uncle Hardcastle would have received any suggestion of a prudential
nature, and she held her tongue.

In Leonard Yorke, if she did not comprehend his doctrine of "perpetual
subsistence," she perceived a provision for her future. At
one-and-twenty, indeed, he made his pupil his wife, to the astonishment
rather than the scandal of the neighborhood. They opined that it was
only in the East, or in royal families who wedded by proxy, that brides
ran so young. Jane Hardcastle, however, was in reality eighteen years of
age.

Yorke Brothers, of Birmingham, had nothing to say against the match, but
they objected to a Swedenborgian partner in the iron trade, and bought
their nephew at a fair price out of the business. They did not offer to
take him back again, when, five years later, he became a true believer
in the faith of Mary Joanna Southcott and the coming of the young
Shiloh. This lady, whose portrait, with that of her spiritual
amanuensis, hung in Mrs. Yorke's sitting-room, had been her only rival
in the affections of her husband. She had not been jealous of her upon
that account, feeling pretty certain, perhaps, that the "affinity"
between them was Platonic; but she had rather grudged the money with
which he had so lavishly relieved the "perplexities" of "the handmaid."
The amanuensis used to issue I O U's at Joanna's dictation, to be paid
with enormous interest Hereafter, and Leonard Yorke was always ready to
discount her paper. There was no one that subscribed more munificently
than he did toward the famous "cradle," or looked more devoutly for its
expected tenant. Even when that long-looked-for 19th of October had come
and gone without sign, and two months later his poor deluded idol passed
away into that future with which she had been so rashly familiar, he was
faithful to her yet, and kept the "seal" which she had given him--his
passport to the realms of bliss--as his dearest treasure. He had
scarcely any other "effects" by that time, for, actuated by his too
fervent faith, he had been living upon the principle of his fortune; and
at five-and-thirty years of age Mrs. Yorke found herself a widow, with a
stock of very varied experience indeed, but not much more of worldly
wealth than she had had to start with. It was