“I think I understand her,” said Francis. “I think the place she means is her old home. If she goes there, I shall hear of her immediately; but if--if she should not be wise enough to return to the friends who would be so glad to shelter her----. Did she ever speak of her home, or of her cousin Francis Tredethlyn?” “Never! She seemed to have some settled grief upon her mind; and having known trouble myself, I know how hard it is to be worried by strangers’ questions and strangers’ pity, even when it’s meant ever so kindly; so I never asked her to tell me so much as one word about her former life.” “But how did she come to be at the theatre with you? I should think of all ways of earning a living, that must be the very last that would occur to my cousin Susan.” “That’s very true,” answered Miss Willoughby; “but it doesn’t take a woman long to come to the last way by which she can earn her bread--the ways are not so many. I can tell you how your cousin came to be at Drury Lane, for I was the means of getting her engaged; and it all came about, as one may say, quite promiscuously. I suppose you know that Susan Turner is a married woman?” “Yes, I do know of her unhappy marriage.” “She called herself Miss Turner in the bills, because, you see, in the theatrical profession a single female is always considered more attractive; though why it should be so,--unless with regard to boys in jackets, in the Christmas holidays, who, being apt to fall in love with the columbine, might find it damping to their spirits to know she was the mother of a family,--I really can’t imagine. However, Susan was Miss Turner in the bills, and I am Miss Willoughby for the same reason, although I’ve been thirteen years a widow come next boxing-night. Perhaps you may remember the sprite who was killed by a fall off a flying bridge in ‘Harlequin Buttercup, or the Maiden all Forlorn; the Fairy Queen of the Daisies, and the Cow with the Crumpled Horn,’ twelve years ago last Christmas? Not being professional yourself, you mayn’t happen to remember the circumstance; but Signor Wilsonio was my husband. He was _not_ an Italian, and his name in private life was Wilson. We had been married two years, and he left me with a little boy just six months old.” Francis listened very respectfully to this fragment of family history, but he chafed under its infliction nevertheless. “If you will tell me how you came to----” he began.