me to have a little conversation with your
mother?"

I felt the dear creature growing as cold as
marble while I said this; there was evidently
something seriously amiss about Mrs.
S. I declare I was so in love at that instant,
that I would have compounded for an Albino
upon the spot. " My mother, Mr. Loveless,"
she replied, " is at present indisposed: " and
immediately afterwards the Lieutenant entered
the room, and put a stop to all explanation.

For a week after that interview I rose with
the lark—or, at least, very little after seven
o'clock—in hopes of catching my future
mother-in-law at her morning walks; but to
no purpose. After that, I tried an hour still
earlier, almost before the sun was up, and
then I caught her: she went out to bathe, it
seemed, at six o'clock. The sanguine old
lady evidently trusted that nobody would be
about at that hour, for she was attired in
marine costume; her head was enveloped in
something exceedingly like a sponge-bag;
she wore blue spectacles; her form was
rolled round in what appeared to be a bed-
curtain, and she had yellow slippers. It was
a frightful apparition, and my heart half
failed me for a moment; but I thought of
Arabella, and was firm. It could not surely
be that she was a monomaniac about dress!
I followed her across the common to the sea-
beach, and took the number of her bathing-
machine. I sat down on the shingle,
and drew forth my cigar-case, in order to
meditate the more calmly. The sea was
dotted with countless sails, and the billows
were leaping in the sunlight; the whole face
of nature was at its fairest; but my thought
was wrapped up solely in that inexplicable
being in Number Twenty-two. That she
came there regularly, and subscribed by the
month, was all the bathing-woman could tell
me about her. Was that, I wondered, for
the disease which was otherwise extinct in
the human species? I waited for twenty
minutes, and then out came Mrs. S., precisely
as before. My belief was, and is, that
she retained those spectacles upon her nose
—she HAD a nose—throughout the immersion.
I followed her to the centre of the common,
and then I spoke. "Mrs. Sandiman, I beg
you will excuse me; but this seems the only
chance of my getting a word with you, you
are generally so indisposed." No answer.
"May I be permitted to ask a question which
concerns most nearly one of your accomplished
daughters?" No answer. There
was a wandering of the eye, and a twitching
of the lip, however, as if she was casting
about for the fit sentence, and rejecting
various others which offered themselves. I
began to think that she was dumb,—
what a glorious mother-in-law!—but determined
upon one more effort. "Have I
your permission, my dear madam, to prosecute
my endeavours to obtain your daughter's
hand?" She answered indeed in the affirmative;
but it was a in a manner that blasted
every hope: by a single word, she betrayed
the reason for all the strange precautions
and mysterious means which had been taken
to keep her dark at Sandwith,—until, at
least, the young ladies had been disposed of.
it was, in truth, utterly impossible that an
alliance with either of them could have been
effected without the concealment of their
mother. To the following, which I sent to
dear Arabella—"After a conversation with
your good mother this morning, dear
Miss Sandiman, I feel it my painful duty to
withdraw my pretension to your affections;
but be assured your secret remains safe with
me"—I received no answer. The sweet girl
understood all at once, and appreciated, I
dare say, my delicate generosity. Until this
present writing, fourteen years after that
interview, I have never disclosed the cause of
Mrs. Sandiman's indisposition. So terribly
did she leave out her H's, that she couldn't
have said heaven to have got there, and
would have called me "'Arry" to the end of
her days.

On the 18th of July will be published, price Five Shillings and Sixpence, neatly bound in cloth,
THE THIRTEENTH VOLUME
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
Containing the Numbers issues between the Nineteenth of January and the Twelfth of July, Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-six.
Complete sets of Household Words may always be had.