im and wept.
"You feel it all strange now," he said, "but I hope we shall be able
to make you comfortable."

"I have been so lonely," she sobbed out amidst her tears.

He had not dared to say a word to her about her father, whose
death had taken place not yet three months since. Of his late
brother-in-law he had known little or nothing, except that the
General had been a man who always found it difficult to make
both ends meet, and who had troubled him frequently, not exactly
for loans, but in regard to money arrangements which had been
disagreeable to him. Whether General Bonner had or had not been an
affectionate father he had never heard. There are men who, in Sir
Thomas's position, would have known all about such a niece after a
few hours' acquaintance; but our lawyer was not such a man. Though
the girl seemed to him to be everything that was charming, he did not
dare to question her; and when they arrived at the station in London,
no word had as yet been said about the General.

As they were having the luggage piled on the top of a cab, the fat
cook passed along the platform. "I hope you are more comfortable now,
Mrs. Woods," said Mary Bonner, with a smile as sweet as May, while
she gave her hand to the woman.

"Thank'ee, Miss; I'm better; but it's only a moil of trouble, one
thing as well as t'other." Mrs. Woods was evidently very melancholy
at the contemplation of her prospects.

"I hope you'll find yourself comfortable now." Then she whispered to
Sir Thomas;--"She is a poor young woman whose husband has ill used
her, and she lost her only child, and has now come here to earn her
bread. She isn't nice looking, but she is so good!" Sir Thomas did
not dare to tell Mary Bonner that he had already noticed Mrs. Wood,
and that he had conceived the idea that Mrs. Wood was the niece of
whom he had come in search.

They made the journey at once to Fulham in the cab, and Sir Thomas
found it to be very long. He was proud of his new niece, but he did
not know what to say to her. And he felt that she, though he was sure
that she was clever, gave him no encouragement to speak. It was all
very well while, with her beautiful eyes full of tears, she had gone
through the ceremony of kissing his hand in token of her respect and
gratitude;--but that had been done often enough, and could not very
well be repeated in the cab. So they sat silent, and he was rejoiced
when he saw those offensive words, Popham Villa, on the posts