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‘What is yours–what is it?’ she asked, with altogether a new view of things.

‘Well–it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!’ said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.

‘Not worse than mine?’

‘Well–that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don’t mind it. You see, we’ve been married a month, and it don’t jar upon me as it would if we’d only been married a day or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that–‘

‘Past, present, and future!’ she murmured. ‘It never occurred to me that you had a tragedy, too.’

‘But I have!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘In fact, four.’

‘Then tell ’em!’ cried the young woman.

‘I will–I will. But be considerate, I beg ‘ee, mee deer. Well–I wasn’t a bachelor when I married ‘ee, any more than you were a spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.

‘Ah!’ said she, with some surprise. ‘But is that all?–then we are nicely balanced,’ she added, relieved.

‘No–it is not all. There’s the point. I am not only a widower.’

‘O, David!’

‘I am a widower with four tragedies–that is to say, four strapping girls–the eldest taller than you. Don’t ‘ee look so struck–dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman, their mother, in Pen- zephyr for some years; and–to cut a long story short–I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by degrees. I’ve long felt for the children–that it is my duty to have them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break it to ‘ee, but I’ve seen lately that it would soon come to your ears, and that hev worried me.’

‘Are they educated?’ said the ex-schoolmistress.

‘No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth, they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach ’em, and bring ’em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school.’

‘O, mercy!’ she almost moaned. ‘Four great girls to teach the rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished–I am, I am!’

‘You’ll get used to ’em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets–mine against yours–will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I could send for ’em this week very well–and I will! In faith, I could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my difficulty!’

Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned. Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to her room she wept from very mortification at Mr. Heddegan’s duplicity. Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a young wife so!

The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer her eyes to turn towards him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. ‘How very well matched we be!’ he said, comfortably.

Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall, hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, ‘Now come forrard, and shake hands properly with your stepmother.’

Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without prospect of reward.