saw. She knew too well what he couldn't read and what she couldn't
write, and she taught him to cultivate indifference with a success
that did much for their good relations. Her invisible industry was
a convenience to him; it helped his contented thought of her, the
thought that rested in the dignity of her proud obscure life, her
little remunerated art and her little impenetrable home. Lost,
with her decayed relative, in her dim suburban world, she came to
the surface for him in distant places. She was really the
priestess of his altar, and whenever he quitted England he
committed it to her keeping. She proved to him afresh that women
have more of the spirit of religion than men; he felt his fidelity
pale and faint in comparison with hers. He often said to her that
since he had so little time to live he rejoiced in her having so
much; so glad was he to think she would guard the temple when he
should have been called. He had a great plan for that, which of
course he told her too, a bequest of money to keep it up in
undiminished state. Of the administration of this fund he would
appoint her superintendent, and if the spirit should move her she
might kindle a taper even for him.

"And who will kindle one even for me?" she then seriously asked.



CHAPTER VI.



She was always in mourning, yet the day he came back from the
longest absence he had yet made her appearance immediately told him