We went in, and the young mistress showed us her new house; we investigated and admired all, down to the very scullery; then we adjourned to the sitting-room—the only one—and, after tea, Ursula arranged her books, some on stained shelves, which she proudly informed me were of John's own making, and some on an old spinet, which he had picked up, and which, he said, was of no other use than to hold books, since she was not an accomplished young lady, and could neither sing nor play.
"But you don't dislike the spinet, Ursula? It caught my fancy. Do you know I have a faint remembrance that once, on such a thing as this, my mother used to play?"
He spoke in a low voice; Ursula stole up to him with a fond, awed look.
"You never told me anything about your mother?"
"Dear, I had little to tell. Long ago you knew whom you were going to marry—John Halifax, who had no friends, no kindred, whose parents left him nothing but his name."
"And you cannot remember them?"
"My father not at all; my mother very little."
"And have you nothing belonging to them?"
"Only one thing. Should you like to see it?"
"Very much." She still spoke slowly, and with slight hesitation. "It was hard for him not to have known his parents," she added, when John had left the room. "I should like to have known them too. But still—when I know HIM—"