and their food provided. She's to be housekeeper, in fact, and keep the
place ready for any one who goes down.'

'Christopherson, _I_ can see, would rather stay where he is.'

'Why, of course, he doesn't know how he'll live without the bookshops. But
he's glad for all that, on his wife's account. And it's none too soon, I
can tell you. The poor woman couldn't go on much longer; my aunt says she's
just about ready to drop, and sometimes, I know, she looks terribly bad. Of
course, she won't own it, not she; she isn't one of the complaining sort.
But she talks now and then about the country--the places where she used to
live. I've heard her, and it gives me a notion of what she's gone through
all these years. I saw her a week ago, just when she had Mrs. Keeting's
offer, and I tell you I scarcely knew who it was! You never saw such a
change in any one in your life! Her face was like that of a girl of
seventeen. And her laugh--you should have heard her laugh!'

'Is she much younger than her husband?' I asked.

'Twenty years at least. She's about forty, I think.' I mused for a few
moments.

'After all, it isn't an unhappy marriage?'

'Unhappy?' cried Pomfret. 'Why, there's never been a disagreeable word
between them, that I'll warrant. Once Christopherson gets over the change,
they'll have nothing more in the world to ask for. He'll potter over his
books--'

'You mean to tell me,' I interrupted, 'that those books have all been