posed that
an Australian branch of our business should be opened. It was done, and
succeeded well.

"About this time we heard that a little son had arrived at the Hermitage
in Hertfordshire. He did not live long. We saw his birth announced in
_The Times_. It may have been some months later, though, looking back on
it, it seems but a few days, that the birth was followed by the death. A
year or two passed away, and my wife and I were made happy by the
arrival of our first child. The child was a daughter. We called her
Charlotte, after my much-loved mother. Time went on, until one day a
telegram was put into my hand summoning my brother and myself to our
father's deathbed. The telegram was sent by the young wife. I rushed off
at once; Jasper followed by the next train.

"The hale old man had broken up very suddenly at last, and the doctor
said he had but a few days to live. During those few days, Jasper and I
scarcely left his bedside; we were reconciled fully and completely, and
he died at last murmuring my own mother's name and holding our hands.

"It was during this visit that I saw the little wife for the first time.
She was a commonplace little thing, but pretty and very young; it was
impossible to dislike the gentle creature. She was overpowered with
grief at her husband's death. It was impossible not to be kind to her,
not to comfort her. There was one child, a girl of about the age of my
own little Charlotte. This child had also been named Charlotte. She was
a pale, dark-eyed child, with a certain strange look of my mother about
her. She was not a particle like her own. My father loved this little
creature, and several times during those last days of his he spoke of
her to me.

"'I have called her after your own mother,' he said. 'I love my second
wife; but the Charlotte of my youth can never be forgotten. I have
called the child Charlotte; you have called your daughter Charlotte.
Good! let the two be friends.'

"I promised readily enough, and I felt pity and interest for the little
forlorn creature. I also, as I said, intended to be good to the mother,
who seemed to me to be incapable of standing alone.

"Immediately after my father's death and before the funeral, I was
summoned hastily to town. My wife was dangerously ill. A little dead
baby had come into the world, and for a time her life was despaired of;
eventually she got better; but for the next few days I lived and thought
only for her. I turned ove