Of her own high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat solaced by the arts.
Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical.

No doubt about her kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious patronage to pictures.

This subaltern had only too much money, and if the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into which he had allowed himself to drift.

An early stage of that career brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to Elm Park Gardens.

The rest is easily conceived.