occurred, and requested me further to wait
for a few minutes longer, intimating that
the lady's grief was so violent, that without
great effort she could not bring herself
to speak calmly at all. As if to beguile
the time, the good dame went on in a
highly communicative strain to tell me,
amongst much that could not interest me,
a little of what I had desired to hear. I
discovered that the grief of her whom I
had come to visit was excited by the
sudden death of a little boy, her only
child, who was then lying dead in his
mother's chamber.

'And the mother's name?' said I, inquiringly.

The woman looked at me for a moment,
smiled, and shook her head with the air of
mingled mystery and importance which
seems to say, 'I am unfathomable.' I
did not care to press the question, though
I suspected that much of her apparent
reluctance was affected, knowing that my
doubts respecting the identity of the person
whom I had come to visit must soon
be set at rest, and after a little pause the
worthy Abigail went on as fluently as
ever. She told me that her young
mistress had been, for the time she had