Nor was this all. Short as had been his absence, it proved long enough to enable him to acquire the language and manners of the people amongst whom he meant for the future to cast his lot; and he went about the City lanes and streets, informing all with whom he stopped to speak, of the irreparable loss he had sustained, of the great change which had been wrought in himself. If he heard naughty words uttered in railway carriages, he was wont to say, "Hush," and then read his dear young friends a homily on their thoughtlessness and profanity. He did not hesitate to tell them he had once been sinful, even as they, and he always finished by expressing a hope they might be converted earlier in life than had been the case with him. He was always sowing good seed; and though some of it was necessarily wasted, upon the whole, I am bound to say, Mr. Asherill found the harvest pay him remarkably well. His bankruptcy, his wife's death, the religious convictions which he was able to receive, proved the making of his fortune. Never had Mr. Asherill done better than when other men were doing as badly as they knew how. Everything he touched turned out well for him, at least; and nothing turned out a better speculation than the widow. Naturally, after Mrs. Asherill's death, she imparted to the widower a vast amount of religious consolation, and likewise naturally Mr. Asherill found her conversation comfort and uphold him exceedingly. Indeed, he found it so comforting that at the expiration of two years from the period of his failure, that is, in the summer of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, he ventured to offer himself and his prospects to the widow. He was a man and a convert, what could a lone woman desire or ask more? Nothing perhaps, and yet the widow had her doubts. She had been so often angled for, that she looked rather closely at the bait before she rose to it, and hinted that whilst friendship urged her to say "Yes," prudence advised her to say "No." She knew so little of Mr. Asherill's antecedents, she was so ignorant even of the names of any of his friends, that-- "The name of Samuel Witney is familiar to you, doubtless," interrupted Mr. Asherill. Yes, the widow knew it well. He was a shining light in his own particular denomination, and she had read his speeches, and listened to his lectures with delight and instruction. "I suppose then," suggested Mr. Asherill, "that if he writes to you saying he has known me for twenty years, believes me incapable of a mean action, and can vouch for my perfect respectability, I may hope--" What he hoped was not exactly conveyed in words, but it resulted in the widow saying, "Oh! Mr. Asherill," and setting her cap, which had suddenly become disarranged, straight.