Since leaving Dorset Street she had assumed a mode of life far above her means, and she was seriously considering the propriety of taking lodgers herself instead of being lodged, when fortune sent in her way a kind, simple-hearted old man, with less of brains than money, as was proved by his offering himself to Mrs. Fordham, whose comely face and dignified bearing attracted his fancy, and who accepted him at once and became Mrs. Dr. Barrett, with a pleasant home in a quiet part of London, and money enough to supply every comfort of life, as well as some of its luxuries. Though twice married Dr. Barrett had never had a child, and his kind, fatherly heart went out at once to Edith, whom he loved and treated as a daughter, and who spent under his roof the happiest, most peaceful years of her life. As it is not my intention to narrate in detail the incidents of those years, during which Edith was first a pupil, then a governess, and then an organist at St. John’s, I shall pass over them silently, and take my readers with me to a time when in her full maturity of beauty and grace, such as few women have ever possessed, she stood just on the verge of the brilliant life her mother had so desired for her, and which proved to be so different from anything of which the wily, scheming woman had dreamed. CHAPTER VII. ELEVEN YEARS LATER. Dr. Barrett was dead; and as with his life the income ceased which had made Mrs. Fordham so comfortable, she was again reduced to the necessity of earning her daily bread, which she did by doing plain sewing, and letting two or three rooms of the little cottage, which was all her husband had left her.