"'Yes,' Mr. Jakins's successor told me, 'there were two music-mistresses in the town—one was Madame Carinda, who taught at Grove House, the fashionable ladies' school; the other was Miss Wilson, whose terms were lower than Madame Carinda's—though Madame wasn't a bit a foreigner except by name—and who was much respected in the town. Likewise her papa, which had been quite the gentleman, attending church twice every Sunday as regular as the day came round, and being quite a picture of respectability, with his venerable pious-looking grey hair.'
"I gave a little start as I heard this.
"'Miss Wilson lived with her papa, did she?' I asked.
"'Yes,' the woman told me; 'Miss Wilson had lived with her papa till the poor old gentleman's death.'
"'Oh, he was dead, then?'
"'Yes, Mr. Wilson had died in the previous December, of a kind of decline, fading away like, almost unbeknown; and being, oh, so faithfully nursed and cared for by that blessed daughter of his. And people did say that he had once been very wealthy, and had lost his money in some speculation; and the loss of it had preyed upon his mind, and he had fallen into a settled melancholy like, and was never seen to smile.'
"The woman opened a drawer as she talked to me, and, after turning over some papers, took out a card—a card with embossed edges, fly-spotted, and dusty, and with a little faded blue ribbon attached to it—a card on which there was written, in the hand I knew so well, an announcement that Miss Wilson, of the Hermitage, would give instruction in music and singing for a guinea a quarter.
"I had been about to ask for a description of the young music-mistress, but I had no need to do so now.
"'Miss Wilson is the young lady I wish to see,' I said. 'Will you direct me to the Hermitage? I will call there early to-morrow morning.'
"The proprietress of Jakins's, who was, I dare say, something of a matchmaker, after the manner of all good-natured matrons, smiled significantly.