affairs! such a listener,
and said such sensible things, and sometimes made suggestions that
were invaluable; and of a discretion! a very tomb for momentous
secrets.

How on earth Barty would have ever managed to get through existence
without her is not to be conceived. Upon my word, I hardly see how I
should have got on myself without these two people to fill my life
with; and in all matters of real importance to me she was the
nearest of the two, for Barty was so light about things, and
couldn't listen long to anything that was at all intricate. Such
matters bored him, and that extraordinary good sense which underlies
all his brilliant criticism of life was apt to fail him in practical
matters; he was too headstrong and impulsive, and by no means
discreet.

It was quite amusing to watch the way his wife managed him without
ever letting him suspect what she was doing, and how, after his
raging and fuming and storming and stamping--for all his old
fractiousness had come back--she would gradually make him work his
way round--of his own accord, as he thought--to complete concession
all along the line, and take great credit to himself in consequence;
and she would very gravely and slowly give way to a delicate little
wink in my direction, but never a smile at what was all so really
funny. I've no doubt she often got me to do what she thought right
in just the same way--_a mon insu_--and shot her little wink at
Barty.

* * * * *

In due time--namely, late in the evening of December 31, 1862--Barty
hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend Dr.
Knight, in Orchard Street; and then he drove to Brixton, and woke up
and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and
motherly woman whose name was Jones; and next morning, which was a
very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into
this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in
Leah's diary by the simple entry:

"Jan. 1.--Roberta was born and the coals came in."

When Roberta was first shown to her papa by the nurse, he was in
despair and ran and shut himself up in his studio, and, I believe,
almost wept. He feared he had brought a monster into the world. He
had always, thought that female babies were born with large blue
eyes framed with long lashes, a beautiful complexion of the lily and
the rose, and their shining, flaxen curls already parted in the
middle. And this