Whilst the firm, North and Gass, was rising higher and higher in wealth and importance, the wife of its senior partner died. She left three children, Edmund, Richard, and Bessy. Subsequently, during a visit to London, chance drew Mr. North into a meeting with a handsome young woman, the widow of Major Bohun. She had not long returned from India, where she had buried her husband. A designing, attractive syren, who began forthwith to exercise her dangerous fascinations on plain, unsuspicious Mr. North. She had only a poor pittance; what money there was belonged to her only child, Arthur; a little lad: sent out of sight already to a preparatory school. Report had magnified Mr. North's wealth into something fabulous; and Mrs. Bohun did not cease her scheming until she had caught him in her toils and he had made her Mrs. North. Men do things sometimes in a hurry, only to repent of them at leisure. That Mr. North had been in a hurry in this case was indisputable--it was just as though Mrs. Bohun had thrown a spell over him; whether he repented when he woke up and found himself with a wife, a stepmother for his children at home, was not so certain. He was a sufficiently wise man in those days to conceal what he did not want known. Whom he had married, beyond the fact that she was the widow of Major Bohun, he did not know from Adam. For all she disclosed about her own family, in regard to whom she maintained an absolute reticence, she might have dropped from the moon, or "growed" like Topsy; but, from the airs and graces she assumed, Mr. North might have concluded they were dukes and duchesses at least. Her late husband's family were irreproachable, both in character and position. The head of it was Sir Nash Bohun, representative of an ancient baronetcy, and elder brother of the late major. Before the wedding tour was over, poor Mr. North found that his wife was a cold, imperious, extravagant woman, not to be questioned by any means if she so chose. When her fascinations were in full play (while she was only Mrs. Bohun) Mr. North had been ready to think her an angel. Where had all the amiability flown to? People do change after marriage somehow. At least, there have been instances known of it.