'Let us forget her altogether, and paint me afresh as I am—a woman, who for years has prayed for nought else but what is born of a humble, tender, loving heart. If you find I possess it, then, Firman, our long parting has not been in vain. But now we have much to tell each other of our past lives.'
'I shall feel more interested in planning our future,' he remarked, smiling.
'Ah, well, whatever we may arrange about that, I shall consider it a point of honour not to rob Mrs Griffiths of her pet lodger! It would be base of me to requite the good Samaritan by running off with the ass!' she added merrily; 'so we must keep her rooms for the present.'
'I'll take the whole house, if that is all, and then you will be obliged to stay altogether; for where I am, there you must be also.'
'And I leave it to you to tell Fred, my boy,' she added with a pretty blush, 'for I feel a guilty cheat towards him; he has looked upon me as his mother, I may say, for so many years, I shall seem like a deserter.'
'Say rather you have been one, and are now returning to your colours.'
'Strange to say, Fred was struck with the portrait, but found no resemblance to the original.'
'Because you are no longer the same woman; the original has gone.'
And thus were happily reunited for life two who, though severed for a while, had been all along intended for each other—this was the Romance of the lodging.