Surely I must now be free? she thought when he had covered his farewell
under a salutation regretful in frostiness.

A week later, she had the embrace of her Louise, and Armandine was made
happy with a piece of Parisian riband.

Winter was rapidly in passage: changes were visible everywhere; Earth and
House of Commons and the South London borough exhibited them; Mrs. Burman
was the sole exception. To the stupefaction of physicians, in a manner
to make a sane man ask whether she was not being retained as an
instrument for one of the darker purposes of Providence--and where are we
standing if we ask such things?--she held on to her thread of life.

February went by. And not a word from Themison; nor from Carling, nor
from the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, nor from Jarniman. That is to say,
the two former accepted invitations to grand dinners; the two latter
acknowledged contributions to funds in which they were interested; but
they had apparently grown to consider Mrs. Burman as an establishment,
one of our fixtures. On the other hand, there was nothing to be feared
from her. Lakelands feared nothing: the entry into Lakelands was decreed
for the middle of April. Those good creatures enclosed the poor woman
and nourished her on comfortable fiction. So the death of the member for
the South London borough (fifteen years younger than the veteran in
maladies) was not to be called premature, and could by no possibility
lead to an exposure of the private history of the candidate for his
vacant seat.