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With every day that he visited the place it pleased him more. It became a daily occupation of his, and it took up most of his thoughts. The agents were gentle and kind; no mention of competitors was made, and the reason for this would have been plain to any other but himself, for he was offering a larger rent than the house was worth. But his offer was not yet confirmed. Many years of successful investment, in which, as I have said, he had neither increased nor diminished his fortune, had given him a just measure of prudence in these affairs, and he would not sign in a definite way until the whole scheme was quite clear in his mind. For a week he visited and revisited, until the caretaker, an elderly woman of rich humour, began to count upon the conversation which she enjoyed at his daily appearances.

In the wealthier part of London—next door to the modern abomination of some new man or other who was destined to no succession, to no honour, and whose fate in the future would probably prove to be some gamble or other upon the Continent—next door to such a house, just round the corner, so that you could only see the Park sideways, lived an admirable woman. She was the wife of a Peer and the mother of numerous children, of whom the eldest now served as a soldier and was an expense to them, as was the youngest, from the traditions of his school, which was also expensive. It was her husband’s business, when that half of the politicians to which he belonged was not in office, to speak at meetings and to write lithographed letters imploring aid of the financial kind for institutions designed to relieve the necessities of the poor. He also shot both on his own land and on that of friends, and he would fish in Scotland, but as he had no land there, he had to hire the fishing. The same was true of his sport with the birds in that Northern Kingdom; so one way and another they were not rich for their position, and this admirable woman it was who made all things go well. She was strong in body, handsome in face, and of a clear, vivacious temper, which pleased all the world about her, and made it the better for her presence. But none of these attributes were so worthy, nor gave her so general an admiration, as the splendid and evident virtue of her soul. There was in her very gesture, and in every tone of her voice when she chose to be serious, that fundamental character of goodness which is at once the chief gift to mortals from Almighty God, and the chief glory and merit of those recipients who have used it well. She had done so, and the whole of her life was a sacrament and a support to all who were blessed with her acquaintance.