Some dozen years ago, he said, there had lived in a remote suburb of London an elderly maiden lady, named Miss Harden, the only daughter of a retired merchant skipper, who had got together a very tolerable sum of money for a man of his class. Dying, he had left it all to his only living relative and friend, his daughter; and on the interest thereof she managed to live comfortably, and even to save quite a third of her income. These moneys she—being, like many maiden ladies, of a suspicious nature—always declined to invest in any way, but kept them in an oaken cupboard in her sitting-room, which cupboard she was accustomed to glorify for its impregnable nature, when the danger she ran by keeping so much money about the house was represented to her. Perhaps she was fortified in her obstinacy by the consideration that she was not entirely alone and unprotected, though most people thought that such protection as she had was worse than none. It consisted in the presence of an orphaned nephew, to whose mother, on her deathbed, Miss Harden had solemnly promised that she would never forsake the child. She had been as good as her word, and better—or worse; for she had treated the boy with such foolish indulgence that he had grown up as pretty a specimen of the blackguard as could be found in the neighbourhood. After being expelled from school, he had never attempted to improve himself or earn his own living in any way, except by betting (and losing), and by making free with certain cash of his first and only employer; which questionable attempt at providing for himself would certainly have led to his being for some time provided for by his country, but for the tears and prayers of his aunt, and the sacrifice of a round sum out of her hoardings. From that time he lived with her, and she cherished and endured him as only women can. Scolding him when he came home tipsy at night, putting him carefully to bed, and forgiving him the next morning, only to scold and put him to bed again the same evening; so, with little difference, went on their lives for years.