r plain suburban
residence, where life was not blue but brown, that she ultimately broke
silence, qualifying her announcement of a probable second marriage by
assuring him that it would not take place for a long time to come, when
he would be living quite independently of her.

The boy thought the idea a very reasonable one, and asked if she had
chosen anybody? She hesitated; and he seemed to have a misgiving. He
hoped his stepfather would be a gentleman? he said.

'Not what you call a gentleman,' she answered timidly. 'He'll be much as
I was before I knew your father;' and by degrees she acquainted him with
the whole. The youth's face remained fixed for a moment; then he
flushed, leant on the table, and burst into passionate tears.

His mother went up to him, kissed all of his face that she could get at,
and patted his back as if he were still the baby he once had been, crying
herself the while. When he had somewhat recovered from his paroxysm he
went hastily to his own room and fastened the door.

Parleyings were attempted through the keyhole, outside which she waited
and listened. It was long before he would reply, and when he did it was
to say sternly at her from within: 'I am ashamed of you! It will ruin
me! A miserable boor! a churl! a clown! It will degrade me in the eyes
of all the gentlemen of England!'

'Say no more--perhaps I am wrong! I will struggle against it!' she cried
miserably.

Before Randolph left her that summer a letter arrived from Sam to inform
her that he had been unexpectedly fortunate in obtaining the shop. He
was in possession; it was the largest in the town, combining fruit with
vegetables, and he thought it would form a home worthy even of her some
day. Might he not run up to town to see her?

She met him by stealth, and said he must still wait for her final answer.
The autumn dragged on, and when Randolph was home at Christmas for the
holidays she broached the matter again. But the young gentleman was
inexorable.

It was dropped for months; renewed again; abandoned under his repugnance;
again attempted; and thus the gentle creature reasoned and pleaded till
four or five long years had passed. Then the faithful Sam revived his
suit with some peremptoriness. Sophy's son, now an undergraduate, was
down from Oxford one Easter, when she again opened the subject. As soon
as he was ordained, she argued, he would have a home of his own, wherein
she, with her bad grammar an