"It is forty-five years ago this month since I was married. You are
surprised; you have always known me under my maiden name, and you
thought I had always been single. It is forty-six years ago this month
since the man who afterwards became my husband first saw me. He was a
partner in a cloth firm. At that time it was the duty of one member of
a firm to travel, and he came to our town, where my father was a well-
to-do carriage-builder. My father was an old customer of his house,
and the relationship between the customer and the wholesale merchant
was then very different from what it is now. Consequently, Mr. Hexton-
-for that was my husband's name--was continually asked to stay with us
so long as he remained in the town. He was what might be called a
singularly handsome man--that is to say, he was upright, well-made,
with a straight nose, black hair, dark eyes, and a good complexion. He
dressed with perfect neatness and good taste, and had the reputation of
being a most temperate and most moral man, much respected--amongst the
sect to which both of us belonged.

"When he first came our way I was about nineteen and he about three-
and-twenty. My father and his had long been acquainted, and he was of
course received even with cordiality. I was excitable, a lover of
poetry, a reader of all sorts of books, and much given to enthusiasm.
Ah! you do not think so, you do not see how that can have been, but you
do not know how unaccountable is the development of the soul, and what
is the meaning of any given form of character which presents itself to
you. You see nothing but the peaceful, long since settled result, but
how it came there, what its history has been, you cannot tell. It may
always have been there, or have gradually grown so, in gradual progress
from seed to flower, or it may be the final repose of tremendous
forces.