she or her friends thought necessary for her. It amounted to nearly a thousand a year; and when she reflected on its extent, her dearest hope was to hand it over, not only unimpaired, but increased, to her husband’s son, to her own darling, to the little man who now lay sleeping on her knee, happily ignorant of the cares which were to be accumulated in his behalf.

When John Bold died, she earnestly implored her father to come and live with her, but this Mr Harding declined, though for some weeks he remained with her as a visitor. He could not be prevailed upon to forego the possession of some small house of his own, and so remained in the lodgings he had first selected over a chemist’s shop in the High Street at Barchester.