Life's Little Ironies

d mood of seriousness and sense of principle, approximating often to religious s

. He soon got over his trifling illness, and was vexed with himself for ha

ness and disclosure, Millborne found himself on a mild spring morning at Paddington Station, in a train that was starting for the west. His many intermittent thoug

name she had assumed when, a year or two after her disappearance from her native town and his, she had returned from abroad as a young widow with a child, and taken up her residence at the former city. H

well-burnished brass doorplate bearing their names prominently. He hesitated to enter without further knowledge, and ultimately took lodgings over a toyshop opposite, securing a sitting-room which faced a similar drawing or sitting-room a

who, being obliged to live by what she knew how to teach, balanced matters by lending a hand at charitable bazaars, assisting at sacred concerts, and giving musical recitations in aid of funds for bewildering happy savages, and other such enthusiasms of this enlightened country. Her daughter was one of the foremost of the bevy of young women who decorated the churches at Easter and

aring all along the street at any hour between sunrise and sunset fragmentary gems of classical music as interpreted by the young people of twelve or fourteen

and far better than he had hoped. He was curious to ge

d, well-wearing, thoughtful face had taken the place of the one which had temporarily attracted him in the days of his nonage. She wore black, and it became her in her character of widow. The daughter

ng his proposal to visit her, and suggesting the evening as the time, because she seemed to be so greatly occupied in her professional capaci

this; and yet he felt a little checked, even though she had o

and not in any private little parlour as he had expected. This cast a distressingly business-like colour over their first meeting after so many years of severance. The woman he had wronged stood before him, w

as to any chance caller. 'I am obliged to receive y

ughter-a

aped her memory. 'But perhaps the less said about that the bet

fferent. The expected scene of sad reproach, subdued to delicacy by the run of y

mean as to marriage? There is n

r. Millborne,' she sa

ago I promised to make you my wife; and I am here

ime of life,' she said after a moment or two. 'It would complicate matters too greatly. I have a very fair income, and require no help of any

ish to marry you, Leonora; I much desire to marry you. But it is an affair of conscience, a case of fulfilment. I promised you, and it was dishonourab

why I should change my state, even though by so doing I should ease your conscience. My position in this town is a respected one; I have built it up by my own hard labours, and, in short, I don't wish to a

now-anythin

d to her. So that, you see, things are going on smo

d, and rose to go. At the door

urbance would be caused. You would simply marry an old friend. Won't you recon

, and patted with

'I shall not be leaving Exonbury yet

mind,' she sai

ds her as he had expected to be; she did not excite his sympathies. Her mother confided to Frances the errand of 'her old friend,' which was viewed by the daughter with strong disfavour. His desire being thus uncongenial to both, for a long time Millborne made not the least impression upon Mrs. F

rce of the argument. I totally deny that after this interval of time I am bound to marry you for honour's sake

skered young man, in clerical attire, called at

?' said Mr

h! they have told him where she is, and he has gone to f

houldn

e is curate of St. John's, Ivell, fifty miles up the line. There is a tacit agreement between them, but-there have been friends of

help the match, instead of hi

think it

y taking you out of th

nkland's daughter, and it led her to soften her opposition. Millborne, who had given up his lodging in Exonbur

s-of the music-and-dancing connection was sold to a successor only too rea