exclamation of surprise.

"Yes," said one of the curates, fiercely. "You may say 'Lord,' but we
were determined to get in, and in we have got. John, shut the door.
Mother, don't put yourself about."

John, being the heavy-faced and heavy-handed man, shut the door.

"Where is Mr. Henry Leek?" demanded the other curate.

Now Priam, whose curiosity had been excusably excited by the unusual
sounds in the hall, was peeping through a chink of the sitting-room
door, and the elderly woman caught the glint of his eyes. She pushed
open the door, and, after a few seconds' inspection of him, said:

"There you are, Henry! After thirty years! To think of it!"

Priam was utterly at a loss.

"I'm his wife, ma'am," the visitor continued sadly to Alice. "I'm sorry
to have to tell you. I'm his wife. I'm the rightful Mrs. Henry Leek, and
these are my sons, come with me to see that I get justice."

Alice recovered very quickly from the shock of amazement. She was a
woman not easily to be startled by the vagaries of human nature. She had
often heard of bigamy, and that her husband should prove to be a
bigamist did not throw her into a swoon. She at once, in her own mind,
began to make excuses for him. She said to herself, as she inspected the
real Mrs. Henry Leek, that the real Mrs. Henry Leek had certainly the
temperament which manufactures bigamists. She understood how a person