This lady received Mr.Fenton very graciously, and declared herself quite ready to give him any information in her power about Miss Nowell.
It happened unfortunately, however, that her power was of a most limited extent.
"A sweeter young lady never lived than Miss Nowell," she said.

"I've had a great many people occupying these apartments since my father's death left me thrown upon my own resources.

I've had lodgers that I might call permanent, in a manner of speaking; but I never had any one that I took to as I took to Miss Nowell, though she was hardly with me three weeks from first to last." "Did she seem happy in her mind during that time ?" Gilbert asked.
"Well, no; I cannot say that she did.

I should have expected to see a young lady that was going to be married to the man she loved much more cheerful and hopeful about the future than Miss Nowell was.

She told me that her uncle had not been dead many weeks, and I thought at first that this was the only grief she had on her mind; but after some time, when I found her very low and downhearted, and had won upon her to trust me almost as if I had been an old friend, she owned to me that she had behaved very badly to a gentleman she had been engaged to, and that the thought of her wickedness to him preyed upon her mind.