the doctor always said that it was his row of "secrets," and used to
amuse himself with evading the questions of the other sex. There were
some larger specimens of natural history suspended from the ceiling,
chiefly skulls and bones of animals; and on the shelves inside a great
variety of stones and pebbles and fragments of marble figures, which
the doctor had picked up, I believe, in the Mediterranean: altogether
the shop was a strange medley, and made people stare very much when they
came into it. The doctor kept an old woman to cook and clean the house,
and his boy Tom, whom I have already mentioned. Tom was a good-natured
lad, and, as his master said, very fond of liquorice; but the doctor
used to laugh at that (when Tom was not by), saying, "It's very true
that Tom cribs my _liquorice_; but I will say this for him, he is very
honest about _jalap_ and _rhubarb_, and I have never missed a grain."

Next door to the doctor lived another person, who kept a small
tobacconist's shop, which was a favorite resort of the pensioners and
other poor people. She was an Irishwoman, with a strong accent of her
country--a widow by her own account. Who her husband had been was not
satisfactorily known: if the question was put, she always evaded it as
much as possible. All she said was that his name was St. Felix, and that
he had been of no profession. She was about twenty-two or twenty-three,
very handsome, and very pleasing in her manners, which was perhaps one
cause of the surmises and scandal which were continually afloat. Some
said that her husband was still alive; others that he had been
transported for seven years; and many (and among them my mother)
declared that she could not produce her "marriage lines." Indeed, there
was no end to ill-natured reports, as always will be the case when men
are so unfortunate as to have a reputation, or women so unfortunate as
to be pretty. But the widow appeared to be indifferent to what people
said: she was always lively and cheerful, and a great favorite with the