children. Whether this implied that he had been disappointed in his
wife, nobody could tell. He certainly did not publish his woes. Men
seldom do. At the birth of a third child Mrs. Grey died, and then the
widower's grief; though unobtrusive, was sufficiently obvious to make
Avonsbridge put all unkindly curiosity aside, and conclude that the
departed lady must have been the most exemplary and well-beloved of
wives and mothers.

All this, being town's talk, Christian already knew; more she had never
inquired, not even when she was engaged to him. Nor did Dr. Grey
volunteer any information. The strongest and most soothing part of his
influence over her was his exceeding silence. He had never troubled
her with any great demonstrations, nor frightened her with
questionings. From the time of their engagement he had seemed to take
every thing for granted, and to treat her tenderly, almost reverently,
without fuss or parade, yet with the consideration due from a man to his
future wife; so much so that she had hardly missed, what, indeed, in
her simplicity she hardly expected, the attention usually paid to an
affianced bride from the relatives of her intended. Dr. Grey had only
two, his own sister and his late wife's. These ladies, Miss Gascoigne
and Miss Grey, had neither called upon nor taken the least notice of
Miss Oakley. But Miss Oakley--if she thought about the matter at all--
ascribed it to a fact well recognized in Avonsbridge, as in most
University towns, that one might as soon expect the skies to fall as for a
college lady to cross, save for purely business purposes, the threshold
of a High Street tradesman. The same cause, she concluded, made
them absent from her wedding; and when Dr. Grey had said simply, "I
shall desire my sisters to send the children," Christian had inquired no
farther. Only for a second, hanging on the brink of this first meeting
with the children--her husband's children, hers that were to be--did her