h appears to offend against the spirit of calm
recital which I profess. People will begin to think that they are to
be kept in the dark as to who is who; that it is intended that their
interest in the novel shall depend partly on a guess. I would wish to
have no guessing, and therefore I at once proceed to tell all about
it.

Miss Caroline Waddington was the granddaughter of old Mr. George
Bertram; and was, therefore, speaking with absolute technical
propriety, the first-cousin once removed of her lover, young Mr.
George Bertram--a degree of relationship which happily admits of love
and matrimony.

Old Mr. Bertram has once or twice been alluded to as a bachelor; and
most of those who were best acquainted with him had no doubt of his
being so. To you, my reader, is permitted the great privilege of
knowing that he was married very early in life. He, doubtless, had
his reasons for keeping this matter a secret at the time, and the
very early death of his wife saved him from the necessity of much
talking about it afterwards. His wife had died in giving birth to a
daughter, but the child had survived. There was then living a sister
of Mrs. Bertram's, who had been married some few years to a Mr.
Baker, and the infant was received into this family, of which our
friend Miss Baker was a child. Miss Baker was therefore a niece,
by marriage, of Mr. Bertram. In this family, Caroline Bertram was
educated, and she and Mary Baker were brought up together as sisters.
During this time Mr. Bertram did his duty by his daughter as regards
money, as far as his means then went, and was known in that family to
be her father; but elsewhere he was not so known. The Bakers lived
in France, and the fact of his having any such domestic tie was not
suspected among his acquaintance in England.

In the course of time his daughter married one Mr. Waddington, hardly
with the full consent of the Bakers, for Mr. Waddington's means were
small--but not decidedly in opposition to it; nor had the marriage
been opposed by Mr. Bertram. He of course was asked to assist in
supplying money for the young couple. This he refused to give; but
he offered to Mr. Waddington occupation by which an income could
be earned. Mr. Waddington wisely acceded to his views, and, had he
lived, would doubtless have lived to become a rich man. He died,
however, within four years of his marriage, and it so fell out that
his wife did not survive him above a year or two.

Of this