their very depths our hearts, friend--our hearts, yours and mine,
comrade, feeble, and cold, and pulseless now.



2. THE CORONER'S INQUEST


The story was told to me afterwards, but I may as well weave it in with
mine at this juncture.

From the maternal ancestress, the Demoiselles Blake inherited a certain
amount of money. It was through no fault of the paternal Blake--through
no want of endeavours on his part to make ducks and drakes of all
fortune which came in his way, that their small inheritance remained
intact; but the fortune was so willed that neither the girls nor he
could divert the peaceful tenure of its half-yearly dividends.

The mother died first, and the father followed her ere long, and then
the young ladies found themselves orphans, and the possessors of a fixed
income of one hundred and thirty pounds a year.

A modest income, and yet, as I have been given to understand, they might
have married well for the money.

In those days, particularly in Ireland, men went very cheap, and the
Misses Blake, one and both, could, before they left off mourning, have
wedded, respectively, a curate, a doctor, a constabulary officer, and
the captain of a government schooner.