Next to Mr. Chantrey himself, Mrs. Bolton was the most eminent personage in Upton. She had settled there upon the archdeacon's death, which happened immediately after he had obtained the living for his wife's favorite nephew. For some years she had been the only lady connected with the rector, and had acted as his female representative. There was neither mansion nor cottage which she had not visited. The high were her associates; the low her proteges, for whose souls she labored. She was at the head of all charitable agencies and benevolent societies. Nothing could be set on foot in Upton under any other patronage. She was active, untiring, and not very susceptible. So early and so completely had she obtained the little sovereignty she had assumed, that when the rightful queen came there was no room for her. The rector's wife was only known as a pretty and pleasant-spoken young lady, who left all the parish affairs in Mrs. Bolton's hands. It is not to be wondered at, then, that no one guessed at David Chantrey's difficulty, though everybody knew the exact amount of his income. Neither he nor his wife hinted at it. Sophy Chantrey would have freely given the world, had it been hers, to accompany her husband; but there was no chance of that. A friend was going out on the same doleful search for health; and the two were to take charge of each other. But how to live at all while David was away? She urged that she could manage very well on seventy or eighty pounds a year, if she and her boy went to some cheap lodgings in a strange neighborhood, where nobody knew them; but her husband would not listen to such a plan. The worry and fret of his brain had grown almost to fever-height, when his aunt made a proposal, which he accepted in impatient haste. This was that Sophy should make her home at Bolton Villa for the full time of his absence; on condition that Charlie, a boy of seven years old, full of life and spirits, should be sent to school for the same term.