Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March
sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from
London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief
holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been in
favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding
rakish horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is
accounted pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an
unusually bitter March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his
native town, and had almost blown him off the door-steps of his
kindred. So it is scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none
the better for his excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his
week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him
while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea.

Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to
put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and
his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly
thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very
familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a
tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without
any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now.
She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair
staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned
him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people.

But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse
can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his
servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little
trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous
woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy