like my expectation of what that sort of woman would be in the lapse of
time, with her experience of life. The severity that I had seen come and
go in her countenance in former days was now so seated that she had no
other expression, and I may say without caricature that she gave us a
frown of welcome. That is, she made us feel, in spite of a darkened
countenance, that she was really willing to see us in her house, and
that she took our coming as a sign of amity. I suppose that the
induration of her spirit was the condition of her being able to bear at
all what had been laid on her to bear, and her burden had certainly not
been light.

At her appearance her husband, without really stirring at all, had the
effect of withdrawing into the background, where, indeed, I tacitly
joined him; and the two ladies remained in charge of the drama, while he
and I conversed, as it were, in dumb show. Apart from my sympathy with
her in the matter, I was very curious to see how my wife would play her
part, which seemed to me far the more difficult of the two, since she
must make all the positive movements.

After some civilities so obviously perfunctory that I admired the force
of mind in the women who uttered them, my wife said, "Mrs. Hasketh, we
have come on an errand that I know will cause you pain, and I needn't
say that we haven't come willingly."

"Is it about Mr. Tedham?" asked Mrs. Hasketh, and I remembered now that
she had always used as much ceremony in speaking of him; it seemed
rather droll now, but still it would not have been in character with her
to call him simply Tedham, as we did, in speaking of him.

"Yes," said my wife. "I don't know whether you had kept exact account of
the time. It was a surprise to us, for we hadn't. He is out, you know."

"Yes--at noon, yesterday. I wasn't likely to forget the day, or the
hour, or the minute." Mrs. Hasketh said this without relaxing the
severity of her face at all, and I confess my heart went down.

But my wife seemed not to have lost such courage as she had come with,
at least. "He has been to see us--"

"I presumed so," said Mrs. Hasketh, and as she said nothing more, Mrs.
March took the word again.

"I shall have to tell you why he came--why _we_ came. It was something
that we did not wish to enter into, and at first my husband refused
outright. But when I saw him, and thought it over, I did not see how we
could refuse. After all, it is something you must have expect