At the time she met him she had already led two reluctant captives to the
hymeneal altar, and was wont to boast, when twitted about the fact, that
"the Lord only knew what she might 'a' done if it hadn't been fer them
eye-teeth!" Her first husband had been Bud Molloy, a genial young
Irishman who good-naturedly allowed himself to be married out of
gratitude for her care of his motherless little Nance. Bud had not lived
to repent the act; in less than a month he heroically went over an
embankment with his engine, in one of those fortunate accidents in which
"only the engineer is killed."

The bereft widow lost no time in seeking consolation. Naturally the first
person to present himself on terms of sympathetic intimacy was the
undertaker who officiated at poor Bud's funeral. At the end of six months
she married him, and was just beginning to enjoy the prestige which his
profession gave her, when Mr. Yager also passed away, becoming, as it
were, his own customer. Her legacy from him consisted of a complete
embalming outfit and a feeble little Yager who inherited her father's
tendency to spells.

Thus encumbered with two small girls, a less sanguine person would have
retired from the matrimonial market. But Mrs. Yager was not easily
discouraged; she was of a marrying nature, and evidently resolved that
neither man nor Providence should stand in her way. Again casting a
speculative eye over the field, she discerned a new shop in the alley,
the sign of which announced that the owner dealt in "Bungs and Fawcetts."
On the evening of the same day the chronic ailment from which the kitchen
sink had suffered for two years was declared to be acute, and Mr. Snawdor
was called in for consultation.