stay in the house about this
time. She was considerably my senior, and was very kind to me, with the
thoughtful kindness an older woman can show to a sensitive young girl.
This awakened in me an affection which, I am thankful to say, still
exists between us. This lady was considerably under thirty years old at
the time, but to my young ideas she seemed already in the sear and
yellow leaf from the matrimonial point of view! One must remember how
different the standard of age was more than thirty years ago!

It was also the time when marriage was looked upon not only as the most
desirable, but as almost the only _possible_, career for a woman.

So when Morton and this lady and I were "sitting at the table" in the
gloaming one evening, I said, with trembling eagerness: "Morton, _do_
ask if Carrie will ever be married," for the case seemed to me almost
desperate at the advanced age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight!

I must mention that for some occult reason (which I have entirely
forgotten) I trusted fervently that a Hungarian or Polish name might be
given after the satisfactory "Yes" had been spelt out, but, alas!
nothing of the kind occurred.

"The table" began with a D, and then successively E, H, A, V were given.
No one ever heard of a Polish or Hungarian name of the kind, and I
remember saying petulantly: "Oh, give it up, Morton. It's all nonsense!
Nobody ever heard of a Mr _Dehav_."

Once more Morton rescued a really good bit of evidence by his
imperturbable perseverance.

"Wait a bit! Let us see what is coming," he said.

I took no further personal interest in the experiment. Either Morton
concluded the name was finished, or there was some confusion in getting
the next letters, owing doubtless to my impetuous disgust. Anyway, he
went on to say:

"Let us ask where the fellow lives at the present time." This was
instantly answered by "_Freshwater_," and the further information given
that he was a widower.

None of us knew any man, married or single, who lived at Freshwater, and
the incident was relegated to the limbo of failures.

Several years later, however, my friend _did_ marry a gentleman whose
name (a very pretty one) began with the five despised letters, and he
was a widower, and _had_ been living in his own house at Freshwater at
the time mentioned. She did not meet him until some years after our
curious experience.

About the same time, but in the south of England, my attention was again
drawn t