When Mr. Boyle was gone, Mr. Clutterbuck reclined some little time in a complete blank: a form of repose in which men of high capacity in organisation often recuperate from moments of intense activity. In this posture he remained for perhaps half an hour, and then went in, not without hesitation, to see his wife. Eighteen years of married life had rendered Mrs. Clutterbuck's features and manner familiar to her husband. It is well that the reader also should have some idea of her presence. She habitually dressed in black; her hair, which had never been abundant, was of the same colour, and shone with extraordinary precision. She was accustomed to part it in the middle, and to bring it down upon either side of her forehead. It was further to be remarked that round her neck, which was long and slender, she wore a velvet band after a fashion which royalty itself had not disdained to inaugurate. At her throat was a locket of considerable size containing initials worked in human hair; upon her wrists, according to the severity of the season, she wore or did not wear mittens as dark as the rest of her raiment. She spoke but little, save in the presence of her husband; her gestures were restrained and purposeful, her walk somewhat rapid; and her accent that of a cultivated gentlewoman of the middle sort; her grammar perfect. Her idiom, however, when it was not a trifle selected, occasionally erred. Her hours and diet are little to my purpose, but it is perhaps worth while to note that she rose at seven, and was accustomed to eat breakfast an hour afterwards, while hot meat in the middle of the day and cold meat after her husband's office hours, formed her principal meals. Her recreations were few but decided, and she had the method to attack them at regular seasons. She left Croydon three times in the year, once to visit her family at Berkhampstead, to which rural village her father had retired after selling his medical practice; once to the seaside, and once to spend a few days in the heart of London, during which holiday it was her custom to visit the principal theatres in the company of her husband. She had no children, and was active upon those four societies which, at the time of which I speak, formed a greater power for social good than any others in Croydon--the Charity Organisation Society, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a similar society which guaranteed a similar immunity to the children of the poor, and the Association for the Reform of the Abuses prevalent in the Congo "Free" State.