y among the sea-anemones and starfishes; now on
the canal-bridge, looking down at the ducks; now at our hard
little meals, served up as those of a dreamy widower are likely
to be when one maid-of-all-work provides them, now under the lamp
at the maps we both loved so much, this is what I see--no third
presence is ever with us. Whether it occurred to himself that
such a solitude _a deux_ was excellent, in the long run, for
neither of us, or whether any chance visitor or one of the
'Saints', who used to see me at the Room every Sunday morning,
suggested that a female influence might put a little rose-colour
into my pasty cheeks, I know not. All I am sure of is that one
day, towards the close of the summer, as I was gazing into the
street, I saw a four-wheeled cab stop outside our door, and
deposit, with several packages, a strange lady, who was shown up
into my Father's study and was presently brought down and
introduced to me.

Miss Marks, as I shall take the liberty of calling this person,
was so long a part of my life that I must pause to describe her.
She was tall, rather gaunt, with high cheek-bones; her teeth were
prominent and very white; her eyes were china-blue, and were
always absolutely fixed, wide open, on the person she spoke to;
her nose was inclined to be red at the tip. She had a kind,
hearty, sharp mode of talking, but did not exercise it much,
being on the whole taciturn. She was bustling and nervous, not
particularly refined, not quite, I imagine, what is called 'a
lady'. I supposed her, if I thought of the matter at all, to be
very old, but perhaps she may have been, when we knew her first,
some forty-five summers. Miss Marks was an orphan, depending upon
her work for her living; she would not, in these days of
examinations, have come up to the necessary educational
standards, but she had enjoyed experience in teaching, and was
prepared to be a conscientious and careful governess, up to her
lights. I was now informed by my Father that it was in this
capacity that she would in future take her place in our
household. I was not informed, what I gradually learned by
observation, that she would also act in it as housekeeper.

Miss Marks was a somewhat grotesque personage, and might easily
be painted as a kind of eccentric Dickens character, a mixture of
Mrs. Pipchin and Miss Sally Brass. I will confess that when, in
years to come, I read 'Dombey and Son', certain features of Mrs.
Pipchin did irresistib