there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this
vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as
a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and
careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its
formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly
buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened
in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William
Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general
help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface
disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at
thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower
of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping.

Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe,
thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you
instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by
cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal
orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a
music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him
all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's
eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years
after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and
a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and
likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so
she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful
objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying
breath, the best of wives.

It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made
his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and
knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate
the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving
one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened
the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back
soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano,
and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless
five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner.

"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's
voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery.

"But