It chanced that David Powell was re-entering his lodgings at the moment the younger Erringtons reached the door. He stood aside to let the lady pass into the house before him, and thus heard her answer. The sound of her voice made him start and bend forward to look at her face when the light from the open door fell upon it. She turned round at the same instant, and the two looked full at each other. David Powell asked Mrs. Thimbleby if that lady were not the wife of Mr. Algernon Errington. "Yes, Mr. Powell, she is his wife; and more's the pity, if all tales be true!" "Judge not uncharitably, sister Thimbleby! Nor let your tongue belie the gentleness of your spirit. It is an unruly member that speaks not always out of the fulness of the heart. The lady seems very sick, and bears the traces of much sorrow on her countenance." "Oh yes, indeed, poor thing! Sickly enough she looks, and sorry. Nay, I daresay she has her own trials, but I fear me she leads that pleasant young husband of hers a poor life of it. I shouldn't say as much to anyone but you, sir, for I do try to keep my tongue from evil-speaking. But had you never seen her before, Mr. Powell?" Powell answered musingly, "N--no--scarcely seen her. But I had heard her voice." Mrs. Errington received her son and daughter-in-law with an effusive welcome. She was so astonished; so delighted. It was so long since she had seen them. And then to see them together! That had latterly become quite a rare treat. The good lady expatiated on this theme until Castalia's brow grew gloomy with the recollection of her wrongs, her solitary hours spent so drearily, and her suspicions as to how her husband employed the hours of his absence from her. And then Mrs. Errington began playfully to reprove her for being dull and silent, instead of enjoying dear Algy's society now that she had it! "I am sure, my dear Castalia," said the elder lady with her usual self-complacent stateliness, "you won't mind my telling you that I consider one of the great secrets of the perfect felicity I enjoyed during my married life to have been the interest and pleasure I always took--and showed that I took--in Dr. Errington's society." "Perhaps he liked your society," returned Castalia with a languid sneer, followed by a short bitter sigh. "Preferred it to any in the world, my dear!" said Mrs. Errington, mellifluously. She said it, too, with an _aplomb_ and an air of conviction that mightily tickled Algernon, who, remembering the family rumours which haunted his childhood, thought that his respected father, if he preferred his wife's society to any other, must have put a considerable constraint on his inclinations, not to say sacrificed them altogether to the claims of a convivial circle of friends. "The dear old lady is as good as a play!" thought he. Indeed, he thoroughly relished this bit of domestic comedy.