s widow died of apoplexy at a
boarding-house in Cheltenham. She was supposed to be the most corpulent
woman in England, and was accommodated on the ground-floor of the house
in consequence of the difficulty of getting her up and down stairs. You
are her only child; you have been under my care since the sad event at
Cheltenham; you are twenty-one years old on the second of August next;
and, corpulence excepted, you are the living image of your mother. I
trouble you with these specimens of my intimate knowledge of our new
family Skin, to quiet your mind on the subject of future inquiries.
Trust to me and my books to satisfy any amount of inquiry. In the
meantime write down our new name and address, and see how they strike
you: 'Mr. Bygrave, Mrs. Bygrave, Miss Bygrave; North Shingles Villa,
Aldborough.' Upon my life, it reads remarkably well!

"The last detail I have to communicate refers to my acquaintance with
Mrs. Lecount.

"We met yesterday, in the grocer's shop here. Keeping my ears open, I
found that Mrs. Lecount wanted a particular kind of tea which the man
had not got, and which he believed could not be procured any nearer than
Ipswich. I instantly saw my way to beginning an acquaintance, at the
trifling expense of a journey to that flourishing city. 'I have business
to-day in Ipswich,' I said, 'and I propose returning to Aldborough (if I
can get back in time) this evening. Pray allow me to take your order
for the tea, and to bring it back with my own parcels.' Mrs. Lecount
politely declined giving me the trouble--I politely insisted on taking
it. We fell into conversation. There is no need to trouble you with
our talk. The result of it on my mind is--that Mrs. Lecount's one weak
point, if she has such a thing at all, is a taste for science, implanted
by her deceased husband, the professor. I think I see a chance here of
working my way into her good graces, and casting a little needful dust
into those handsome black eyes of hers. Acting on this idea when I
purchased the lady's tea at Ipswich, I also bought on my own account
that far-famed pocket-manual of knowledge, 'Joyce's Scientific
Dialogues.' Possessing, as I do, a quick memory and boundless confidence
in myself, I propose privately inflating my new skin with as much
ready-made science as it will hold, and presenting Mr. Bygrave to Mrs.
Lecount's notice in the character of the most highly informed man she
has met with since the professor's death. The necessit