When the good fairy of that romance of real life to which we have alluded determined to assure himself of the existence of the Missing Heiress, he went to considerable expense in advertising, in consulting lawyers, in having conferences with detectives, and the like. And it was quite surprising to find how many Missing Heiresses turned up to tell the story of how they had been left upon a certain night on a certain doorstep. Stubbs first heard of the affair from the landlady of the “Six Bells,” and he immediately came to the conclusion that Mrs. Stubbs was the lady in question. Mrs. Stubbs was a foundling. Mrs. Stubbs had been found on a doorstep. Mrs. Stubbs had been found on a doorstep in the very identical town where the Missing Heiress had been deposited.
“It tuk my brothe away,” said Stubbs, in afterwards describing his sensations.
Stubbs was a small and secretive umbrella-maker, and kept the news to himself until he had seen a man of law. But though Stubbs kept the news to himself he was unable to disguise its effects. If the truth must be told, Stubbs was a short-tempered, tyrannical man, habitually cruel and contemptuous to the wife of his bosom. She had for a short time after marriage attempted to assert her position and maintain her individuality.
But Stubbs being a Republican and a Freethinker, stood upon his undoubted rights, reduced his wife to what he described as her “proper spear,” and became thenceforward and for ever “mawster in his hown ’ouse.” As he himself explained to the President of the Republican Circle—an influential society holding weekly meetings at the “Six Bells,”—
“I said as ’ow I’d break her, an’ she’s broke.”
On the same evening that brought to Mr. Stubbs the intelligence concerning the Missing Heiress, Mrs. Stubbs was in a great distress of mind because she was behindhand with her husband’s tea. A domestic failure of this kind was always calculated to arouse the dormant eloquence of her lord. Indeed, a very trivial shortcoming on the part of Mrs. Stubbs was apt to bring down on her devoted head hard words and sometimes, I regret to say, hard blows. In her efforts to expedite matters on this particular evening, Mrs. Stubbs—as is occasionally the case—instead of forwarding domestic affairs had delayed them. And when the door suddenly opened, and her irate lord stood on the threshold, she stood in the midst of a “confusion worse confounded.” With trembling accents, and not daring to lift her eyes, she faltered,—
“I’m so sorry I’m a bit late, John, but—”
To her intense surprise, John replied in tones more faltering and deferential than her own,—
“It’s orright, Mary, dear. Better late than never, don’t ye know.”
“He calls me ‘dear,’” said Mary to herself, lifting her eyes to ascertain whether her husband was sober. Yes. He was evidently under no alcoholic influence. And yet there he stood, blushing, stammering, and holding in his hand the hat which heretofore in his own house he invariably carried on his head.